


Negative Space

by DetectiveSebCas



Series: Negative Space Universe [1]
Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Clothed Sex, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Frottage, Grief/Mourning, Hand Jobs, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-13 20:10:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12991626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveSebCas/pseuds/DetectiveSebCas
Summary: Sebastian is sure he’s making a mistake when he finds himself climbing the steps of the art museum again three days later.  He tells himself that he stayed away as long as he could, but ever since the field trip, things have been different.  It's taken him two years to establish some sense of stability, but now he can feel the world shifting around him, and he’s sure that he’s heading down the rabbit hole again.[Despite Stefano's apparent death in Union, he and Sebastian cross paths again two years later.  After their time in STEM, they need each other more than Sebastian is willing to admit.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover art by [Noctambularis](http://noctambularis.tumblr.com/).

 

 

 

The atmosphere in the room changes immediately when the last harpoon bolt leaves his crossbow with a loud click.  When Sebastian raises his eyes from the sights, he sees Stefano finally standing still, his good eye wide, mouth slightly open, and the shaft of the bolt protruding from the left side of his chest.  Sebastian hears him utter a little gasp as he crumples to the ground on his back, arms splayed out on either side of him.

Sebastian knows that he should be rushing through those double doors right now, though he’s not sure where they lead.  He knows that he should be running to Lily, because surely she is close by.  But he also knows the jerky rise and fall of Stefano’s chest, the harsh inhalation, the involuntary twitching of his arms and legs, the dark blood pooling under him.  He’s seen it before, too many times- murder victims, a fellow officer once, even a perp who pulled a gun on him.  Sebastian knows what a dying man looks like, and it doesn’t make it any easier to know that he has to die, that there is no other way.

So instead of doing all the things he knows he should be doing, he takes a few steps closer to Stefano’s supine form.  Stefano is speaking softly, almost to himself.

“I had so much left to create.”  The words leave his mouth with a rush of air, and Sebastian knows that he doesn’t have long.  He crouches down beside Stefano, trying to gauge whether his presence will agitate him further, but Stefano turns his head slightly to stare at Sebastian serenely.  His eye is unfocused, his pupil dilated, and Sebastian wonders if Stefano sees him at all.

“You’ve destroyed my legacy,” Stefano says with another harsh exhalation. His next breath in comes with a wet, rustling sound that Sebastian knows all too well. Sebastian opens his mouth to speak, but Stefano continues, “Look at me.  You’ve made me into a masterpiece.”

Sebastian restrains himself from rolling his eyes.  He had hoped that Stefano’s realization of his own impending death might make him a bit less eccentric, but it seems there is little chance of that.  His next statement doesn’t surprise Sebastian at all.

“Must record it...” Stefano’s eye leaves Sebastian and his head lolls the other way as the fingers of his left hand twitch.  With what seems to be a tremendous effort, Stefano manages to move his left arm just a bit, but it’s enough to jar the bolt still lodged in his chest, and he cries out sharply.

“Be still,” Sebastian admonishes, his voice a low rumble that causes Stefano’s head to turn back toward him.  He’s fully seated himself on the floor now, and he slips his arms under Stefano’s.  He can’t explain why he’s doing it, but he knows that he’d do the same for anyone in this state, that he’d want the same for himself.  He also knows that he’s left a trail of bodies in his wake on this journey through STEM, but Stefano is the most aware, the most human, and he can’t bring himself to let him die alone.

He slowly, carefully lifts him, draws him closer until Stefano’s back rests against his chest, and Stefano’s head falls back against his shoulder.  Stefano hisses as the change in position undoubtedly aggravates his injuries, but offers no other protest.

“Sorry, sorry,” Sebastian whispers, and Stefano quiets for a moment. The only sound in the room is the harsh gasps he makes as he struggles to draw air into his lungs.  Then Stefano speaks again.

“If only I had my camera...,” his voice is almost inaudible now, and Sebastian dips his head a little to catch the words.

“Where did it go?” Stefano pants, struggling to move his head again.

“There’s no need for that now,” Sebastian murmurs, pressing one of his hands gently to Stefano’s forehead.  Stefano’s eye closes in response, and for a moment all is quiet.

“You’ll,” Stefano gulps for air, “remember this though?”

“Yes, always,” Sebastian answers without thinking.  Then, because it’s the kind of thing he thinks will comfort the artist, he adds, “You look exquisite.”

A gentle smile crosses Stefano’s face before he tries to draw in air again and fails, body jerking against Sebastian’s as his mouth opens and closes several times.  They are both drenched in blood now, and Stefano’s eye flies open, a panicked expression on his face.  Sebastian cups Stefano’s cheek in his hand, and Stefano weakly turns his face into Sebastian’s neck.

“Shhh, it’ll be over soon,” Sebastian whispers, his lips brushing Stefano’s ear.  The worst part is, he knows he’s right.  The erratic fluttering of Stefano’s heart and the gurgling sound that has replaced Stefano’s breathing tell him that.  He tightens his arm around Stefano’s chest even though he’s sure Stefano can’t feel it anymore.

“Just relax, it’s okay,” Sebastian murmurs, stroking Stefano’s hair with his free hand, and, almost as if he was waiting for Sebastian’s permission, Stefano stills, his body going slack against Sebastian’s.  Sebastian waits patiently until the only sound in the room is his own breathing, until Stefano’s heart has given up its feeble attempts to beat.  Then he waits again, silently counting out another two minutes, making sure Stefano is completely quiet and still, before he gently lowers his body to the floor.

He arranges Stefano’s limbs in a way that looks at least somewhat comfortable and smoothes his hair over his bad eye, because he thinks that’s what Stefano would have preferred.  Then he grits his teeth and pulls the harpoon bolt from Stefano’s chest.  He tells himself it’s because he needs all the ammo he can get, but deep down he knows it’s because he can’t stand to see Stefano’s body pierced, violated like that, no matter what Stefano tried to do to him.

Sebastian stands, pausing to look down at Stefano’s body, and he’s surprised to find that Stefano really does look exquisite in a way.  His jet black hair is in stunning contrast to the dark red blood and his vibrant purple suit, and Sebastian has unwittingly arranged him into a tableau that is not unlike one of Stefano’s own creations.  Sebastian has never had much of an appreciation for art, but just for a moment, he sees the beauty in death.

Then he remembers himself, turns, and dashes through the double doors.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover art by [Noctambularis](http://noctambularis.tumblr.com/).


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Sebastian is sure that he’s not going to vomit- at least, not immediately- he sits up, looking into the face of the man who is crouched before him, his hand still on Sebastian’s shoulder as he murmurs words of encouragement.
> 
> It’s like a bucket of ice water being dumped over his head, because he knows that face.  He’s seen this man before, in another lifetime.  He looks just as Sebastian remembers him, black hair swept down over his face to hide his right eye, an expression of casual interest, and an expensive-looking suit.
> 
> [Two years after leaving Krimson City, Sebastian chaperones a field trip for Lily's class and encounters a familiar face.]

“Just don’t try to hold my hand or anything.  Okay, Dad?”

Lily rolls her eyes dramatically at Sebastian before hurrying off to catch up with her friends.  Or put some distance between herself and her old man, thinks Sebastian.  These days it seems that he is constantly in danger of mortally embarrassing her.

As Sebastian climbs the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, doing his best to keep a respectful distance from Lily, he braces himself for a morning of wrangling overexcited twelve year olds in a confined space.  He’s always the first to volunteer to do anything with Lily’s class, making up for lost time after all, but he does wonder how much seventh graders can appreciate an art museum.  Hell, he wonders how much anyone can appreciate an art museum, but he’s glad Lily’s getting a well-rounded education.

And that’s what he’s trying to tell himself an hour later.  They’re in the main exhibit hall which is hosting a set of (apparently) very famous impressionist paintings that’s been traveling around the country.  Sebastian stifles a yawn as Lily’s teacher starts pointing out the elements of yet another painting.  The kids are listening politely, which Sebastian thinks is admirable, because he’s pretty sure he couldn’t have managed it at their age.  He’s barely managing it now.  He catches the teacher’s eye and nods towards the door.  She offers a small nod in return, and Sebastian escapes into the hall outside the gallery.

A few minutes later, after he’s located a bathroom and splashed some water on his face, Sebastian emerges ready to take on anything, including the rest of the museum, but as he makes his way back to the school group, something in one of the other galleries catches his eye.

The display doesn’t seem particularly striking at first glance.  It’s a photography exhibit, but the photos are blown up to cover entire walls, and there’s something else. Somehow the images appear three-dimensional, and before Sebastian realizes it, he’s stepping over the threshold into the gallery, transfixed by the scene that surrounds him, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing, until it’s just too much and his stomach is turning over and the blood is rushing in his ears and the gallery is collapsing down to one tiny point of light in a black void.

Sebastian knows he’s dropped to his knees because he can feel the ground under him, but the room is swimming in and out of focus and he feels like his ears are full of cotton.  Then there’s a whiff of aftershave and a hand on his shoulder and a thickly accented male voice in his ear, and Sebastian can’t understand what’s being said, but the tone is gentle, reassuring even. Sebastian lets his arm be draped over the stranger’s shoulder, lets himself be pulled to his feet, leaning heavily against the other man, and stumbles with him into the hall, where he sinks onto a bench.

Dropping his head down to his knees, Sebastian takes several deep, steadying breaths and the nausea starts to subside.  The scent of aftershave remains, along with the voice, and Sebastian realizes that, through the accent, the words are in English.

“There, just breathe.  You’re going to be alright.”  The voice is almost musical.

When Sebastian is sure that he’s not going to vomit- at least, not immediately- he sits up, looking into the face of the man who is crouched before him, his hand still on Sebastian’s shoulder as he murmurs words of encouragement.

It’s like a bucket of ice water being dumped over his head, because he knows that face.  He’s seen this man before, in another lifetime.  He looks just as Sebastian remembers him, black hair swept down over his face to hide his right eye, an expression of casual interest, and an expensive-looking suit.

“You,” Sebastian growls, knocking Stefano’s hand away from him.

“Yes, it’s me,” Stefano replies mildly, sitting back on his heels.  “Are you alright?”

“I-,” Sebastian isn’t sure how to respond to that.  Is he alright?  His mind races before settling on a different question.  Where is Lily?  In a rush, he remembers where they are and what they are doing, or at least, where he thinks they are and what he thinks they’re doing, and for fuck’s sake this cannot be happening to him again.

Sebastian closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, blows it out, and then opens his eyes again.  Stefano is still crouched in front of him, his brows knitted in concern, but Sebastian knows he needs to find Lily, to make sure that she’s safe, because he’s not sure he can believe his eyes anymore.  He can’t even begin to process this new turn of events, but he can at least start to get a handle on things if he can just see Lily.

“I need to go,” Sebastian blurts, lurching to his feet and taking off down the hall.  Stefano doesn’t go after him, merely watches after Sebastian with his head slightly cocked to one side and a curious expression on his face.

Sebastian bursts through the door of the main gallery, greeted by squeals of alarm from the children, and immediately locks onto Lily.

“Lily, are you alright?” He realizes too late that he’s almost shouting, and that Lily is already blushing furiously.

“Stop it, Dad,” she hisses at him, and some of the other students giggle. Lily's teacher is staring at him like he's lost his mind, and for all Sebastian knows, she might be right.

“Sorry, I’m fine.  Everything’s fine,” Sebastian says quickly with a dismissive wave of his hand.  He slips back into the crowd of students as the teacher calls for their attention.  Sebastian takes up a post about three feet behind Lily- within arm’s reach, he assures himself- and maintains it for the rest of the field trip.  He doesn’t see Stefano again that day.

 

 

Sebastian is sure he’s making a mistake when he finds himself climbing the steps of the art museum again three days later.  He tells himself that he stayed away as long as he could, but ever since the field trip, things have been different.  It's taken him two years to establish some sense of stability, but now he can feel the world shifting around him, and he’s sure that he’s heading down the rabbit hole again. 

Maybe Mobius has finally caught up to them, or, worse yet, maybe he never made it out of STEM at all. Sebastian can't be sure, but he knows what he saw in the gallery and the effect it had on him. This is just recon.  He needs to figure out what he’s up against, how broken his new world has become.

It’s 10am on a Friday, and the museum is very quiet.  Sebastian makes his way back to the strange photography exhibit, but doesn’t go inside this time.  He pauses to look at the placard outside the gallery, which reads “Negative Space by Stefano Valentini".  The name still sends a shiver up his spine, and he jumps a mile when a hand lands at the small of his back.  He whirls around and is suddenly face to face with the man himself.

“Back again,” Stefano smiles at him, and while it’s not overtly threatening, Sebastian isn’t going to let his guard down.

“I need some answers,” Sebastian replies flatly.

“Don’t we all,” Stefano sighs.  “And you believe I have those answers?”

“Yes,” Sebastian says.  “I do.”

“I will tell you what I know, but let’s go for a coffee.  I’ve been cooped up in here for hours.”

Sebastian can't think of a reason not to do as Stefano suggests, so he follows Stefano to a small coffee shop across the street from the museum, orders a cup of black coffee, and sinks down into the plush armchair across from Stefano.  Stefano sits back in his chair, crosses one long leg over the other, and sighs deeply.

“Where shall I begin?” Stefano asks.

Sebastian decides to start with a question he already knows the answer to.

“You remember me?”

“Yes,” Stefano nods.

“Do you remember Union?”

Stefano looks like he has to suppress a shudder before answering, “Yes, I remember.”

Sebastian decides it's time to get to the important stuff.

“Then how are you still alive?”

“That is a question I may not be qualified to answer.”  Stefano pauses and his gaze drifts away from Sebastian to rest on the table between them.  “I remember... what happened in Union, and the next thing I can recall is waking up in a bathtub full of... unknown fluids.”  He wrinkles his nose.

“It was cold, so cold,” Stefano continues, and he can’t suppress the shudder this time.  “And dark. It took me many attempts to stand up, as though I hadn’t used my legs in a long time. When I could stand, I realized that I was in a large room, some sort of warehouse.  At first, I thought I was alone, but then I realized that there were people in other tubs all around me.”  He pauses, still staring at the tabletop.

“Dead?” Sebastian asks.  He doesn’t need to use his imagination to picture the scene Stefano is describing.  That was his reality the first time he came out of STEM.

“Yes,” Stefano jerks his head back up to meet Sebastian’s eyes.  “All dead.  As was everyone else in the building.  I had to find my own way out.”

Sebastian nods.  This sounds all too familiar to him, but it still doesn’t explain what happened the other day.  He tries a different approach.

“Tell me about this... exhibit of yours.”  He gestures vaguely in the direction of the museum.

Stefano seems to come alive under this line of questioning.

“Of course!  ‘Negative Space’ is a multi-modal installation that challenges the viewer to come to terms with different layers of reality, with the level of illusion that is inherent in the media of photography and cinematography, with-"

“Hold on,” Sebastian interrupts.  “What are the components of the exhibit itself?”

“Photographs and projections,” Stefano responds easily.  “It’s the fusion of the two media that makes the experience immersive and captures-“

Sebastian just holds up his hand this time, and Stefano politely stops speaking.

“Does it use any of the STEM technology?”

“What?  No.”  Stefano looks genuinely taken aback at this suggestion.  “What is STEM? Why would you ask me this?”

“It’s complicated, but for the time being, let’s say that STEM is what you know as Union,” Sebastian answers, rubbing at the back of his neck. “And you saw how the exhibit affected me.”  Sebastian realizes that his tone has become accusatory, but Stefano disarms him immediately by laughing softly and nodding his head.

“Yes, I did,” Stefano answers.  Sebastian glares at him.

“Allow me to explain,” Stefano begins, leaning forward in his seat.  “I created ‘Negative Space’ to help me... deal with some complicated feelings about my time in Union.  The entire concept, the layers of reality, not being sure what is real, the fear of the unknown and the unknowable were all... concepts that I was struggling with- that I still struggle with.”  He takes a deep breath.

“This piece helped to express all of those things, and I had hoped that it would create some small approximation of those feelings in other viewers, but I didn’t consider how it might affect someone else who has been in Union.  If your experience was anything like mine, and you came upon the exhibit unexpectedly, I can imagine that it might be... disturbing, but in a way, that means that I’ve done exactly what I set out to accomplish.”  Stefano sits back and folds his hands, looking satisfied.

“Which was what exactly?  To incapacitate me?”  Sebastian’s glare hasn’t softened.

“No.”  Stefano heaves an exasperated sigh.  “To create an approximation of the Union experience.  I am sorry if you found it unpleasant.”

Sebastian isn’t convinced.

“And you just happened to be right there when I walked into the exhibit?  Are you always on site with your work?”  Sebastian raises an eyebrow.

“Not always,” Stefano responds evenly, “but this installation has been... problematic to say the least.  Cords get unplugged, things overheat." He shrugs.  “I’ve been present with the exhibit quite a bit just to keep things running smoothly.  And I have other responsibilities at the museum, of course.”

Stefano glances at his watch.  “Actually, I should be getting back.”  He reaches for his wallet, which confuses Sebastian at first, because they’ve already paid for their coffee, but Stefano sets a business card on the table in front of Sebastian.

“In case you have more questions,” Stefano explains, before tucking his wallet back into his suit.  “Ciao.”

Sebastian simply nods at him, and Stefano turns and strolls out of the coffee shop, heading back to the museum.  Sebastian watches him until he disappears from view, then picks up the business card. He has a lot more questions.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not here to kill you,” Sebastian begins. I didn’t want to kill you the first time, he wants to add, but when he opens his mouth again, he can’t make the words come out, and he ends up covering by lifting his glass to his lips.
> 
> [Sebastian accompanies Stefano to dinner, develops a new perspective on the artist's motivations, and has some feelings of his own.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noctambularis has created a lovely web comic based on a scene from this chapter that can be seen [here](http://noctambularis.tumblr.com/post/177417475206/negativespacefanart1).

 

 

Two weeks later, Sebastian is still looking at Stefano’s business card.  He has to admit, it’s tempting to call him, mostly because he can’t talk to anyone else about STEM, and there are so many things he needs to talk about.

He’s constantly amazed by how well-adjusted Lily is, but because of that, he never talks to her about their ordeal unless she initiates it, which is happening more and more rarely these days.  Lily also hardly ever has nightmares anymore, while Sebastian finds himself waking up almost every night drenched in sweat and biting back a scream.  Kids are resilient, apparently, but Sebastian is not.

He’s been working the last two years as a private investigator, like so many ex-cops.  He enjoys the work, and he’s good at it.  He decides which cases to take, he sets his own hours, and most importantly he gets to fly under the radar.  After how things at the Krimson City PD turned out, it’s important to him that no one is looking over his shoulder anymore.  He’s not going to get rich in this line of work, but he makes decent money, and he can adjust his schedule to be available whenever Lily needs him.

Lily is growing up fast though, and she’s made it more than clear that he needs to back off a little.  She still laughs at his jokes when they’re at home and likes him to tuck her in at night, but in public, he’s expected to make himself scarce.  Since he’s raising her solo now, he’s consulted a dozen parenting books, and they all assure him that her behavior is normal and that he needs to give her space while also standing by to support her when she needs her dad.

It’s a balancing act that results in situations like the one Sebastian is in tonight, where Lily has gone off to the mall and a movie with her friends (and one of her friends’ mothers, Sebastian checked), and Sebastian is sitting on the couch staring at his phone in case somehow, in the middle of this outing, Lily suddenly decides that she needs her dad.

Even Sebastian realizes that this probably isn’t healthy and that he should find something else to do, but there’s nothing to be done on any of his cases this time of the evening, and despite numerous attempts, he hasn’t managed to develop any hobbies or friends of his own, which is why he finds himself picking up his cell phone and dialing the number on Stefano’s business card.  The phone rings twice, and Sebastian is about to hang up and start wondering what on earth he was thinking, when Stefano answers.

“Pronto.”

“Umm... hello?”  Sebastian says.

“Good evening.  Who is calling?”  Stefano’s tone is brisk, businesslike.

“It’s Sebastian Castellanos.”

“Ah, Sebastian.”  The edge leaves Stefano’s voice, and he sounds genuinely pleased.  “I was beginning to think you would never call.  What can I do for you?”

Sebastian wants to mutter an excuse and go right back to sitting on his couch alone, but he’s had a thousand nights like that and they haven’t gotten him anywhere. So he forges ahead.

“Can you meet me tonight?”

There’s a brief pause on the other end of the line, but then Stefano replies.

“Yes.  Have you had dinner yet?”

“No.”  Sebastian pauses, wondering if he should try to explain that when Lily’s not home, “dinner” is usually a grilled cheese sandwich that he eats over the sink to avoid getting a plate dirty.  Luckily Stefano responds while he’s still internally debating.

“I’ll text you the address.  Meet me there at 7:30.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then.”

“Ciao,” Stefano says before the call cuts off.

Sebastian sits for a moment, wondering what he’s gotten himself into this time.  But it’ll be fine, he reassures himself.  Lily can call him on his cell phone if she needs anything, and he’ll be back well before her movie is over.

Then his phone goes off in his hand, causing him to jump.  It’s the address Stefano promised.  Sebastian plugs it into his phone’s web browser and discovers that it’s an upscale sushi restaurant downtown.  Leave it to Stefano to have expensive tastes and impose them on the people around him.

Sebastian can’t complain too much, since it’s getting him out of the house, but he’s pretty sure his current attire of jeans and a faded Krimson University sweatshirt probably won’t go over well.  He takes a quick shower and does a spot-check on his beard, which he now keeps neatly trimmed.  Lily’s been telling him to cut his hair, but it’s not like he can do anything about that now.

He roots around in his closet until he pulls out a dark red dress shirt.  After looking at it in the mirror next to the black slacks and blazer he’s picked out, he wonders if he should try another color, then wonders why the hell any of this matters when he’s just meeting Stefano for dinner.  He can’t be bothered to find a tie, as he rarely has occasion to wear them these days, and he hopes this place doesn’t have some weird dress code about that.

Sebastian grabs his phone, wallet, and car keys and dashes out the door just five minutes behind schedule.  As long as traffic isn’t bad, he can make it up on the highway, he tells himself.

 

  
Through some questionable driving maneuvers, Sebastian manages to arrive at the restaurant right on time and walks briskly to the entrance where Stefano, dressed in a crisp navy blue suit and white dress shirt, is exhaling a long plume of smoke and putting out his cigarette on a nearby ashtray.  Sebastian represses a violent urge to tackle Stefano, wrestle the cigarette out of his hand, and try to extract whatever nicotine is left in it.  He actually hasn’t had a cigarette in two years, but when he’s stressed that’s the first thing he starts craving, followed closely by a stiff drink. He’s given up both for Lily’s sake, but it hasn’t been easy.

Instead, he tries to smile at Stefano, but apparently it comes off as more of a grimace, because Stefano gives him a quizzical look.

“You made it all the way here, but you don’t look happy to see me,” Stefano observes.

“I don’t know if I’m happy to see you,” Sebastian admits.  “I don’t know what I am.”

“Come with me then,” Stefano beckons.  “Give me a chance.  I’ll see if I can figure you out.”  He turns and walks into the restaurant.  Sebastian follows.

The restaurant is exactly the kind of place where Stefano fits in perfectly, and Sebastian is sure that he sticks out like sore thumb.  But Stefano glides along behind their host, seemingly completely at ease with both the setting and Sebastian trailing in his wake.

They are seated in a private booth, separated from the rest of the restaurant by a thick curtain, and Sebastian feels a wave of relief that he won’t have to worry about a room full of people in addition to the man he came here to see.

The host leaves them, and Stefano consults the wine list.

“I’ll order us a bottle.  I think a Riesling-“

“I don’t drink,” Sebastian cuts in.  Then, when Stefano looks like he’s going to argue: “I can’t... I used to...”

Stefano regards him seriously for a moment, then nods.  “I suppose I’ll have to seduce you the old-fashioned way then.”  Stefano winks at him as much as man with one eye can be said to wink.

Sebastian laughs in spite of himself.  He’s probably just relieved that Stefano’s not pressing the drinking issue, because the idea of an attempt at seduction goes right over his head at the moment.

“Would you prefer that I not drink in front of you?”  Stefano asks.

“No, it’s alright,” Sebastian answers quickly.  “But if you light another cigarette, I’ll fight you for it.”

Stefano laughs then, and it’s deep and rich and feels somehow intimate to Sebastian, like it’s only for him.

Their waiter makes an appearance then and Stefano orders a glass of wine for himself, while Sebastian orders a soda.  After the waiter leaves, Sebastian begins studying the menu, until he realizes that Stefano is studying him.  He doesn’t know how to respond to that, doesn’t know what Stefano wants from him, and that brings him right back to Lily.  He tries to subtly ease his cell phone out of his pocket, just to check and make sure he hasn’t missed a call since he entered the restaurant.  He glances down at it, but of course Stefano doesn’t miss a thing.

“Something on your mind?” Stefano asks, nodding towards Sebastian’s pocket.

“My daughter’s out with her friends,” Sebastian explains.  “Just need to keep an eye on the phone in case she calls.”

“Ah, Lily, of course,” Stefano replies, and Sebastian’s face starts to feel hot at hearing her name from Stefano’s lips.  “She must be, what, eleven, twelve now?  Such a bright child-“

Stefano stops abruptly, staring at Sebastian’s right hand. Sebastian tracks his gaze and is surprised to see that said hand now has a death-grip on his steak knife.  He breathes out slowly, releases the knife, and raises his eyes back up to Stefano’s, fixing him with a stare.  He’s not going to stab Stefano in public, but he is angry, and he needs an explanation, if there can even be one.

“You kidnapped my daughter,” Sebastian growls. Stefano holds his gaze for a few seconds, then glances off to one side with a slight nod.

“Yes, I did.” Stefano meets Sebastian’s eyes again.

“Why?” Sebastian doesn’t break eye contact, but leans forward slightly in his seat.  Stefano leans back incrementally to maintain their distance before he throws up his hands in frustration.

“You already know why,” Stefano says with an exasperated sigh.  “I told you myself.  Theodore commanded me to find her.”

“And you just bent to his will?”  Sebastian can hear the self-righteous tone that is creeping into his own voice, but he doesn’t bother to suppress it.

“Did you ever see what happened to those who didn’t bend to his will?”  Stefano’s voice also holds a note of challenge.

Sebastian considers for a moment.  It’s not hard to recall Theodore’s world.  “I saw men strapped into torture devices, burned alive, imprisoned deep underground,” he answers.  “Is that what you mean?”

Stefano nods.  “Yes, he showed me what life in Union would be like for those who opposed him, and he showed me the power I could wield if I joined him. I had no choice.”

Sebastian starts to speak, to tell him that of course he had a choice and he was a coward for letting Theodore control him like that, but Stefano raises a hand, and Sebastian holds his tongue.

“Theodore has a way of- surely you met Theodore?” asks Stefano.

Sebastian is struck with the realization that Stefano doesn’t know about anything that happened inside STEM after his apparent death.

“I didn’t just meet him,” Sebastian replies.  “I destroyed him.”

A little half-smirk crosses Stefano’s face.  “Good,” he says.  “No one deserves it more than him.”

The waiter pushes aside the curtain then, causing them both to jump a bit.  He sets down their drinks and Sebastian realizes that he has no idea what he wants to order.  He quickly directs his attention back to the menu, but Stefano interrupts.

“May I?”  He gestures towards the menu.

“Why not?” Sebastian shrugs.  He’s no sushi expert, and he’s not here for the food anyway.

Stefano looks pleased and orders a bunch of things Sebastian has never heard of.  Sebastian realizes with a pang that Stefano might be as lonely as he is.  He has the air of someone who loves to entertain and finally has an audience.  Sebastian tries not to dwell on that thought. Stefano is the man who kidnapped his daughter. That’s all.

Stefano finishes ordering, and the waiter retreats with their menus.  Stefano turns his attention back to Sebastian.

“Where was I?”

“You were talking about Theodore,” Sebastian offers.

“Yes, Theodore,” Stefano sighs.  “I’m sure you saw how he operates.  He finds out what you want, what motivates you, and he uses it to get inside you.”  Stefano’s looking through Sebastian now, almost in a trance.  “And he gets in so deep that you can’t separate him from you without eviscerating yourself in the process.”

Stefano’s gaze snaps back into focus on Sebastian.  “At least, that’s what happened to me.”

“That’s what happened to me too,” Sebastian says gruffly.  “I got out of it.  I beat him, but I know what you mean about him getting inside your head.”

“Union was a different place before Theodore took power,” Stefano continues.

“Wait,” Sebastian interjects.  “Wasn’t Theodore always in power?  I thought he was in charge of recruiting.”

“He recruited me,” Stefano says.  “Looking back, I was very foolish.”  He shakes his head slowly.  “I wasn’t even religious, but I was alone, and he made me feel like... like my work mattered… like I mattered.”  Stefano shrugs. “I know I fell for his routine, but I also know I’m not the first, and he’s not the first, like the People’s Temple, like Heaven’s Gate...” His voice trails off.

“Everyone wants to belong somewhere,” Sebastian offers, because it does make sense in a way.

“Exactly,” Stefano says with more conviction.  “And I didn’t belong in Krimson City, and I didn’t belong in Florence before that, so when Theodore offered me a place in Union, I was willing to give everything up to take it.  And for a while, things were quite ordinary.”

“What exactly is ordinary for you?”  Sebastian asks, his mind filled with the images of Stefano’s twisted, mutilated victims.

Stefano seems to turn that question over in his mind.  “I’m talking about myself rather a lot.  Is that a problem?”

“Well, since the original question I asked was why you kidnapped my daughter, I would say it’s necessary,” Sebastian answers.

“True.”  Stefano pauses.  “Can I ask you something first?”

“Sure,” Sebastian says.

“Does my continued existence depend on whether I answer this question to your satisfaction?”

It’s only then that Sebastian notices the slight tremor in Stefano’s hands, realizes that Stefano is afraid. And why shouldn’t he be? Sebastian is looking at the man who kidnapped his daughter, but Stefano is looking at the man who literally killed him. That tremor, that vulnerability takes Sebastian right back to the last time he saw Stefano in STEM, in the theatre, and Sebastian is seized by a ridiculous impulse to reach for Stefano’s hands, steady them, and reassure him that he is safe with Sebastian (even if Sebastian maybe did consider stabbing him earlier).

He realizes a second later, feeling like an idiot, that his enthusiasm to act on that impulse could be interpreted as an aggressive lunge.  Stefano is halfway out of the booth before Sebastian can get a word out.

“Wait!  Please.”  Sebastian raises his hands, palms facing Stefano, and slowly sits back in his seat.  “I’m sorry.  Please sit down.”

Sebastian takes a few deep breaths and looks across the booth to see Stefano doing the same.

“If you are no threat to me or my family,” Sebastian tries, “then I am no threat to you.”

“Very well.” Stefano seems to have collected himself.  “I should warn you that my memories from before Union are… fragmented at best, and I’m not sure that they can entirely be trusted.”

Sebastian is reminded of the files he read in the Mobius labs in STEM- the ones that explained the ‘defect’ of partially recovered pre-STEM memories occurring in Union citizens. He supposes it’s fairly impressive that Stefano remembers anything at all from before STEM, since Mobius went to such great lengths to re-write the memories of all their test subjects.

“I won’t bore you with my childhood unless you want to hear about it...”  Stefano pauses and Sebastian shakes his head no.  “...but let me assure you that by the time I took a position as a war photographer, I had no living family members.  That was actually seen as an asset by the recruiting agent, and later by Theodore.  I was deployed with an army unit almost immediately after being hired. I can’t remember where, but that’s when things changed.”  Stefano pauses to take a long sip from his wine glass.  Sebastian checks his phone; no calls from Lily.  Stefano sees him look at it, but offers no comment, just nods slightly.

“My artwork before had been a bit... unusual, but nothing dramatic, nothing groundbreaking.  I was still waiting to find my inspiration, and I found it, there in the desert, the same day I lost my eye.”  He gestures to the right side of his face.

“I remember that day well. I’m sure even if I forget everything else, I will remember that day. The photograph that I took the moment that grenade went off woke something in me.  I didn’t realize it at the time, through the fear and the pain and the blood.  I didn’t get to look at the photograph for several weeks until I had recovered, but once I saw it, there was no going back.  I was... preoccupied with the moment of death, and I had to photograph it again.

“Now, I know what you are thinking, but I never succeeded in capturing that moment again outside of Union.”

Sebastian starts to interrupt, but Stefano raises a hand.

“Not even with Miss Lewis.  She was my model, and I did photograph her body, but I didn’t kill her.”

“How-” Sebastian starts to ask, but Stefano interrupts.

“From the roof of an adjacent building with a very long lens,” Stefano says quickly with another wave of his hand. This doesn’t actually answer the question Sebastian had planned to ask, but Stefano seems eager to get back to his story, so Sebastian lets it go for the moment.

“My work did become much darker after I lost my eye.  I won’t deny that.  I sought out darker subject matter.  I did some things I’m not proud of in furtherance of my work, but I never killed anyone.  Even in Union, it was the same at first.  My art was very dark, disturbing to many, but it never harmed anyone.  Union was... idyllic.  Frankly, I often thought it was a little boring, but there was no crime, certainly no murder.  Until about a week before you arrived.”  Stefano pauses for another sip of wine.

“What happened then?” Sebastian prompts.

“Theodore came to me.  He told me about the Core- about Lily.” Stefano corrects himself as Sebastian bristles.

“And about the power we would have if we could find her, the things that I could create. He seemed to appreciate my work, which is more than I could say for the uneducated masses.” A distinctly bitter tone creeps into Stefano’s voice. “He always knew just what to say. I suppose that was his art. And he was a master.” Stefano sips his wine again, looking thoughtful.

  “I did locate Lily, but then, Union started to change. Not just the landscape, but the way that time passed, the laws of physics, the people. I started to change.  Certainly, I had those dark impulses inside me, but something amplified them.  Maybe Theodore’s influence, maybe Lily’s power; I don’t know how to explain it.” Stefano shakes his head slowly. “I did…things. The most fascinating, most beautiful, most terrible things.” The look on Stefano’s face is more wonderment than anything else, which Sebastian finds a bit unsettling.

“Yes, I saw some of those things. They were fucking terrifying,” Sebastian says bluntly in an attempt to bring Stefano back in touch with reality and not whatever weird artist’s wet dream he’s clearly having.

“Perhaps, but… how can I explain this?” Stefano pauses, staring at the ceiling for a few seconds before looking back to Sebastian. “Creating art is my highest aspiration. It is the thing in life that motivates me from one moment to the next. That is how it was before Union and in Union and how it is now. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Sebastian answers. He considers adding that it would be sort of hard to miss that, since art is basically all Stefano ever talked about every time they met in Union, but Stefano is already speaking again.

“As I told you, my creative visions are often of very dark subject matter, specifically the moment of death. That is how it was before Union and in Union and how it is now.”

Sebastian nods.

“But the materials and methods I used to bring those ideas into reality did change. Before Union, I was inhibited by certain rules and sensibilities, and that limited how I was able to present my creative vision, but in Union, it was as though none of those inhibitions existed or had ever existed. I was free to shape the world, to create works of art directly from my mind, with no thought to methods or materials. It was the most intoxicating kind of freedom, a complete triumph of the creative mind over the rational.”

“And now?” Sebastian prompts.

“Now, the rational mind has returned. I have lost the power of that sublime, unfettered kind of creation. My artistic vision has not changed, but the way I present that vision has been… diluted. I am no longer capable of the sort of actions I took in Union.” Stefano’s eye meets Sebastian’s, and he doesn’t look away.

“I don’t mean to make an excuse, but I thought you deserved an explanation, even if you do mean to kill me again.”

Sebastian looks down at the table and doesn’t speak for several seconds as he mulls this over. In both his current career and his previous one, he’s developed a very keen sense of when someone is lying to him, but Stefano comes off as genuine.

Sebastian initially recoils, both from Stefano’s creepy “artistic vision” talk and from the idea that someone not inherently evil could do such cruel things, could see people as “materials” for his art projects, but then he thinks of Myra in STEM. Wasn’t Myra corrupted in the same way Stefano was talking about? Myra, whose entire reason for being was to protect Lily; Myra, who loved Sebastian and knew, deep down, that he was the one who could take Lily to safety; Myra, whose mind was so twisted by her time in STEM that she was tearing the world apart to keep Sebastian away from their little girl.

And he thinks of himself in STEM, his own determination to find his daughter at all costs, and what it actually cost to get her back and to keep her safe. He thinks of the destruction of Union and the fall of Mobius, and the deaths of Stefano and Theodore and Myra and O’Neil and Torres and Hoffman and probably Sykes and hundreds, if not thousands, of nameless others.

Finally, he remembers what Kidman said, about how STEM damages people in ways even Mobius wasn’t aware of. As much as he hates to admit it, Sebastian has to recognize a distinct possibility that Stefano isn’t actually an evil person, or at least, isn’t a person who would normally act on his darker impulses. He has to consider the possibility that Stefano is another victim of STEM, like Myra and Lily and Sebastian himself.

Sebastian is still deep in thought when the waiter reappears with their food, but he meets Stefano’s eye and holds his gaze until the waiter has placed various small plates all over their table and shuffled awkwardly away from what Sebastian can only imagine looks like a staring contest between two grown men.

“I’m not here to kill you,” Sebastian begins. _I didn’t want to kill you the first time_ , he wants to add, but when he opens his mouth again, he can’t make the words come out, and he ends up covering by lifting his glass to his lips.

Stefano’s face relaxes a little, and he gestures to the food. “Then we should eat.”

The conversation gets a bit lighter while they are eating. Stefano identifies all of the various dishes for Sebastian and is thoughtful enough to not laugh too hard at Sebastian’s general incompetence at eating with chopsticks. The food is great, which makes it all the more frustrating that Sebastian has to work so hard to get it into his mouth, but he perseveres and after a few tries even Stefano has to admit that Sebastian’s starting to catch on.

They talk about safe subjects: work, books, the weather, and Sebastian learns that Stefano is one of the curators at the museum and deals in art from time to time, that he is currently reading _Brave New World_ for the fourth time, and that he is not enjoying the unseasonably cold autumn at all. Sebastian can’t share much about his work, as most of it is covered by client-confidentiality, but he’s grateful that he kept up with Lily’s summer reading list, since that’s the only thing that allows him to talk about literature without sounding like a complete idiot.

After they’ve finished eating and the waiter has brought them coffee, Stefano asks, “So is there going to be any quid pro quo here?”

“What, you want to ask me something?” Sebastian can’t see anything wrong with that. After all, Stefano did answer his question very thoroughly earlier, and Sebastian is a little drowsy from a good meal and still has an hour before Lily’s likely to be getting back home. “Go ahead.”

“Tell me about STEM,” Stefano says simply, and Sebastian lets his head fall back against the cushion of the booth. This could take a while.

“STEM is a sort of…well, it’s technology that was being used by a company called Mobius,” Sebastian begins.

Stefano nods, “I saw that name somewhere in the building where I woke up after Union.”

“But Mobius didn’t actually develop STEM,” Sebastian continues, wondering where to start, because there’s just so much that Stefano doesn’t know and probably should know. “How much time do you have?”

“As much as you need,” Stefano replies, making a sweeping gesture with his hands.

Sebastian wonders if Stefano really knows what he’s getting himself into, but he starts explaining. He talks about Ruvik and the development of STEM, about Beacon, which is a story in itself, and about the second STEM that Mobius created with Lily as its core. He explains how Mobius recruited people to become citizens of Union, about Mobius’ vision for a network of linked minds, and about the tremendous scope of Mobius’ power. Stefano listens, nodding or commenting occasionally, until Sebastian pauses to drink his coffee.

“If Mobius is as powerful as you say, how did we escape?” Stefano asks with a raised eyebrow.

“We had help from the outside… and the inside,” Sebastian answers. “There was a plan to rescue Lily and bring Mobius down.”

“This was your plan?” Stefano asks.

“No,” Sebastian answers quickly. “I wasn’t even aware of it at first. It was…” Sebastian can feel his throat constricting before his lips even try to form her name. He clears his throat loudly, but the tight feeling remains. “It was Myra’s plan,” he finally chokes out, then begins studying the tablecloth, because he is not going to cry in front of anyone, especially not Stefano. Sebastian is a little surprised by his own reaction, because he usually has himself pretty well under control. But he also almost never talks about Myra, and when he does, he’s putting on a brave face for Lily and reminding her of how amazing her mother was. Now that Lily’s not here and Sebastian is faced with the prospect of talking openly about Myra, it’s almost too much to bear. They’ve been sitting in silence for several seconds when Sebastian looks up at Stefano.

“And who is Myra?” asks Stefano.

Sebastian tries to take a deep breath, but it feels like there’s nowhere for the air to go. “Myra was my wife.”

“Oh…” Stefano breathes, but doesn’t speak further.

Sebastian feels like his chest is collapsing in, like he’s about to suffocate, but he plunges into the explanation anyway. “She was the one who infiltrated Mobius and found Lily. She was the one who came up with the plan to save her. And she was the one who destroyed Mobius.” He’s actually gasping for air when he finishes speaking. His eyes are starting to burn, and he knows he only has seconds to get himself back together before he breaks down completely.

Luckily, Stefano gives him some time, waiting quietly while Sebastian steadies his breathing, blinks a few times, and composes himself, before asking, “How did she accomplish that?”

Sebastian finds it’s easier to keep talking if he looks over Stefano’s shoulder, rather than right at him. “She became the Core, and she sent a fatal signal to the neural chips Mobius put in all of their employees. That’s how we were able to escape without Mobius coming after us.”

There are a few more seconds of silence before Stefano raises his coffee cup. “Well,” he says thoughtfully, “To Myra, then.”

Sebastian feels the heat flare up inside him, feels his muscles tense as he wonders how Stefano has the nerve to say something like that. But then he looks at Stefano more closely, and there’s no trace of mockery or deception or anything that Sebastian can detect. And after all, Myra was responsible for saving both of them. Tears are stinging Sebastian’s eyes as he picks up his own cup, touches it to Stefano’s, and repeats, “To Myra.”

Both of them drink, and Sebastian checks his phone again- definitely time to get home.

“I need to go,” Sebastian says. “Lily’s going to be getting home soon.”

“Of course,” Stefano says with a nod. Sebastian takes out his wallet, but Stefano waves him off.

“I’ll take care of it,” Stefano says. “I invited you.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian replies earnestly, “for the dinner and the company.” And he actually means it. Even though there were some emotional highs and lows throughout the evening, dinner with Stefano was a very pleasant alternative to sitting on his couch waiting for Lily to come home and feeling nothing at all.

A wistful smile crosses Stefano’s face. “I’m finding that I enjoy your company as well. You have my number.”

“And now you have mine,” answers Sebastian. He exits the booth and strides out of the restaurant, his steps a little bit lighter than they were on the way in.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noctambularis has created a lovely web comic based on a scene from this chapter that can be seen [here](http://noctambularis.tumblr.com/post/177417475206/negativespacefanart1).


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sebastian," Stefano begins, "we made it out of STEM, yes? We're not still inside?"
> 
> "Yes, we got out," Sebastian answers with more conviction than he actually feels. 
> 
> [A late-night phone call leads to a few more revelations.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noctambularis has created a lovely web comic based on a scene from this chapter that can be seen [here](http://noctambularis.tumblr.com/post/177487932756/negativespacefanartp2).

 

 

Sebastian can't see more than foot in front of his face, but he already knows where he is. He's coughing, choking on thick, acrid smoke, but he rushes forward anyway, banging his shin hard on the coffee table, even though he knows it's going to be there. Swearing loudly, he crouches low, hoping for clearer air as he shuffles into the kitchen, circling back to the door into the entryway. He needs to get upstairs, needs to get to Lily, because this time, he can save her. He’s sure of it. The doorknob is hot to the touch, but he grabs it hard anyway, shouting in pain as he turns it and shoulders the door open.

But he's not in his house anymore. He's at one end of a long hallway, and he knows that he has to get to the other end. Lily isn’t here, and surely that means she is somewhere up ahead. He starts to run, fighting to take long strides with feet that feel heavy and unresponsive. Images flash on both sides of him, glimpses of figures, of motion, like film skipping on a damaged reel, but he pays them no mind. Theodore's voice booms through the hall:

"You'll never make it. Just like before."

But Sebastian is going to make it this time. He is going to reach Lily if it's the last thing he ever does. His legs are moving so fast now that he feels almost out of control. His muscles are burning, his lungs are burning, his skin is burning, and he realizes with a start that a wall of fire is bearing down on him.

He will not fail. He cannot fail. He digs deep, drawing on a last burst of speed, but suddenly there's a wall of fire rushing up to meet him from the front as well. He skids to a halt, looks frantically for a route of escape, but in seconds the flames have engulfed him, and he knows only white-hot pain, blistering heat, and the sound of Lily’s screams.

 

  
Sebastian jolts awake, sitting upright and automatically clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle the shout that he can't quite hold back. He's breathing like he just ran a race and his T-shirt is soaked in sweat. He rests his elbows on his thighs, head in his hands, as he tries to control the ragged breaths that shake his whole body. He listens for Lily's soft footsteps, but hears only his own gasps and the pounding of his heart.

He flops back onto his pillow, relieved that he's managed to avoid disrupting Lily's sleep, when his cell phone loudly announces an incoming text message.

"Shit," Sebastian hisses as he fumbles for the phone on his nightstand, his fingers still clumsy from sleep. He switches it to vibrate, then reads the message, which is from Stefano.

_Are you awake?_

Sebastian's first instinct is to text back _Well I am now_ , because what the hell is Stefano doing texting him at three o'clock in the goddamn morning and possibly waking up Lily, but that seems a little unfair, since he actually was awake in the first place.

 _Yes._ Sebastian texts back.

The response is immediate. _May I call you?_

Of course Stefano would be weirdly polite when he's texting someone at three fucking AM. Sebastian considers for a moment. While he's been lying still, his breathing has calmed, but the full body shivers have set in, and he knows if he closes his eyes, he's just going to be right back in the maze of fire hearing Lily's screams and Theodore's taunting voice. This undeniable fact, coupled with the frequency of the nightmares, explains why Sebastian is always caught up on his work, the house is so clean, and there is a visible path on the kitchen floor where Sebastian paces the nights away when he’s run out of other things to do.

As exciting as a night of pacing and reorganizing the cupboards sounds, Sebastian decides that maybe it would be sort of nice to talk to someone who won't think he's crazy for having nightmares about an imaginary world. He can't take the call in his bedroom though. Lily's right across the hall, and she has to get up for school in a few hours.

 _Give me 2 minutes_ , he replies. He sits up, swings his legs over the edge of the bed, and strips off his sweaty T-shirt, tossing it into the hamper in a practiced motion. His pajama pants still seem clean enough, so he leaves them in place. He stands and grabs his robe from the back of the bedroom door, shrugging it on and feeling a little bit like an old man as he drops his phone into the pocket, because he's pretty sure that before Lily was born he never envisioned himself wearing, or even owning, a bathrobe.

Getting downstairs is a little tricky, because it's an old house, and sometimes the floorboards creak and groan even when no one is tiptoeing across them in fear of every tiny sound. Sebastian breathes a sigh of relief when he reaches the living room without hearing Lily's door open. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he wonders if Stefano just literally counted out two minutes before calling. Sebastian lowers himself quietly onto the worn leather couch before he answers.

"Castellanos."

"Sebastian?" Stefano's voice is thin, brittle in a way that is so unlike the Stefano he had dinner with last Friday that Sebastian doesn't know how to respond at first.

"Yes, it's me," Sebastian answers. "What's going on?"

"I don't know... I can't..." Stefano’s breathing is fast and heavy, and Sebastian is suddenly struck by the memory of holding Stefano in his arms, listening to his final hushed, fragmented words, and there's a spike of panic in his chest because that's the only other time he's heard Stefano sound this way.

"Did something happen?" Sebastian asks, then, realizing that's a very broad question, "Are you injured?"

"No," Stefano says with some effort. "I just..." His words trail off into more harsh breathing.

Sebastian adopts his most reassuring voice. It's actually the same one he uses when Lily has a nightmare, but he's not going to tell Stefano that. "Listen to me," he says. "It's okay. You're safe. Just take some deep breaths."

This is where he would normally tell Lily that her nightmares aren’t real, that he will protect her, and that nothing is ever going to hurt her again, but somehow he doesn’t think it will help Stefano to hear that. Stefano has seen real horrors, and Sebastian knows from his own experience that it takes more than a few well-intentioned words to remedy that. In fact, he doesn’t know what it would take or if it’s even possible, because if he did, he’d be in much better shape himself.

He listens for a moment. It sounds like Stefano's breathing is slowing down a little bit. He gives Stefano a few more moments before he says, "Tell me what's going on."

"Nothing," Stefano says with more composure. "It's nothing. I apologize for disturbing you. Good-"

"Wait." Sebastian says, because suddenly the prospect of being alone, of waiting out the dawn with only his own thoughts and fears and visions of fire feels like a lead weight on his chest. He's done it before, more times than he can count, but it never gets any easier.

Several seconds pass in silence. It’s a thick, tense silence, and Sebastian knows that if it goes on much longer it's going to break him, knows that one of them has to bridge the gap.

"I dreamed about STEM tonight," Sebastian says finally, voice low and eyes downcast even though Stefano isn't there to see him. "That's why I was awake before."

A few more seconds of silence on the other end of the line make Sebastian wonder whether Stefano actually did hang up, but then Stefano speaks.

"I also dreamed of STEM," he says tentatively.

"That's why you were...?" Sebastian isn't really sure how to describe what Stefano was a minute ago.

"Yes, again, I apologize," Stefano says quickly. "Sometimes the dreams... affect me in a physical way."

"It's alright," Sebastian says, a bit of warmth creeping back into his voice because Stefano is so charmingly embarrassed about something that happens to Sebastian almost every night. "I wasn't in a much better state when you first texted."

"Will you tell me, if you don't mind, what do you experience in these dreams?" Stefano's voice is hesitant, as if he expects Sebastian to snap at him. Sebastian’s gut reaction is that yes, he does mind. Then he thinks on it for a few seconds and realizes that there is literally no one else he could ever hope to talk to about this and that if he wants to keep Stefano on the phone, he’s going to have to give up some information. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to speak.

"A lot of things. Sometimes my home, but also Union and Beacon. Everything I saw in STEM- monsters, voices, ghosts. And there's the fire... there’s fire everywhere." What Sebastian finds he can't put into words is what he feels during the nightmares- desperation, helplessness, fear, rage-, but Stefano sums it up perfectly.

"Sebastian," Stefano begins, "we made it out of STEM, yes? We're not still inside?"

"Yes, we got out," Sebastian answers with more conviction than he actually feels. Stefano is quiet.

"What do you dream about?" Sebastian asks, genuinely curious about what Stefano would be afraid of from STEM.

"Visions that Theodore showed me, waking up alone in a room full of dead mean, losing control of the world around me, my own..." There's a long pause, and Sebastian realizes what Stefano is about to say a half-second before he says it. "... my own death."

And there it is- that one, critical subject they've been dancing around since that day at the museum.

"You killed me." Stefano sounds awestruck, as if just speaking those words will change the world around them.

"I-" Sebastian's first instinct is to argue, but he catches himself. This isn't the time.

"Stefano," he tries again, struggling for a way to explain himself that will satisfy Stefano but also isn't an outright lie. "I'm sorry for... for everything that happened. I had no choice." As soon as he speaks the words, he is forcibly reminded of their dinner last week and how angry he was when Stefano spoke those same words to him.

"No," Sebastian corrects himself. "I had a choice, but I made it the day Lily was born."

Stefano is quiet for a moment. "Yes," he says finally. "I suppose you did." Sebastian isn't sure what to say next, but Stefano continues. "I admired your perseverance in Union, the way you overcame every obstacle in your path to find your daughter. I didn't realize until it was too late that I was one of those obstacles."

"Would you have ever given her up?" Sebastian asks, even though he already knows the answer.

"No," Stefano concedes.

"I'm sorry," Sebastian says again, feeling a genuine pang of sympathy this time. "I wish there had been some other way." There's a long pause before Stefano speaks.

"May I ask you about what happened afterwards? After the fighting, I mean, but before I..." Stefano's voice trails off, and Sebastian realizes that this might be even harder to explain than why he killed Stefano in the first place. He wishes Stefano would just leave it be. It should be enough that he did what he did. But while they’re on the subject of him killing Stefano, he doesn’t feel like he’s in a position to deny the other man any answers. He steels himself and responds.

"I... Look, I've seen a lot of people die." Sebastian's voice rises as he goes on the defensive. "And it's always horrible, and you never get used to it, and I just..." His voice softens a little. "I just didn't want you to be alone." There's another pause, during which Sebastian wonders if he just made a complete fool of himself.

"Thank you," Stefano says finally. "You were very kind. It was unlike anything I have experienced before." Sebastian isn't sure whether Stefano means the kindness or his death, and either topic is likely to take them into dangerously emotional territory, so he doesn't ask. Maybe Stefano is thinking the same thing, because he changes the subject.

“Does Lily also have nightmares?” Stefano asks. Sebastian frowns. It’s still jarring to hear Stefano mention Lily, but it doesn’t enrage him the way it did before.

“Sometimes,” Sebastian answers. “She had a lot more right afterwards, but she’s doing much better now. Definitely better than me.” Sebastian doesn’t add that it’s probably normal for a little girl to have nightmares after any kidnapping, much less a violent, STEM-fueled horror show like Stefano was putting on. But maybe his silence says enough, because Stefano speaks again.

“I don’t know if this makes a difference to you, but I am truly sorry for my role in what happened to Lily.” Sebastian can’t see Stefano of course, but his tone is earnest. “It is difficult for me to apologize for many things that happened in STEM, because it feels like another lifetime, but I am troubled by how the events in Union affected your family.”

Sebastian sighs deeply and turns to lie back on the couch, scooting down the cushions until he's sprawled full-length across them. This is more of an apology than he ever expected from Stefano, but somehow it brings him little satisfaction.

“My family was torn apart by Mobius even before Union,” Sebastian says. “They’re the ones who need to apologize.”

“They are all dead. Isn’t that enough?” Stefano asks.

“It’s never enough.” Sebastian growls. There’s a long silence on the other end of the line.

“Sorry,” Sebastian says finally. “I...”. He’s not sure what he intended to say. He’s not even sure he’s actually sorry. He just wants Stefano to keep talking.

“You don’t need to explain,” Stefano replies. “No one has more cause to be angry with Mobius than you.”

“Mobius victimized us all,” Sebastian says. “Even before things got really bad, they were just using the Union citizens for their science experiment. They have no respect for people’s lives.”

“No,” Stefano agrees. “The warning signs were there from the beginning. When I was first contacted by the Mu Center- that was Theodore’s church of sorts- one of the first questions I was asked was whether I had any living family members or ties to anyone. I should have left immediately. I knew something was wrong, but Theodore spoke so well of my work, of what I could bring to his community, and I...” He pauses as though he’s unsure how to say what comes next. “I can, at times, be somewhat blinded by my own ego.”

Sebastian can’t suppress a bark of laughter at that. Stefano says it like it’s a big secret when in reality it couldn’t be more obvious. Sebastian catches himself, genuinely concerned about offending Stefano, clears his throat to disguise further laughter, and speaks.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that, yes, I sort of noticed that in Union.”

“That’s alright,” Stefano chuckles a little himself, so Sebastian figures he’s probably okay. “Some of it comes from too much time in the art world. It’s not enough to create something that is meaningful to you. Other people have to appreciate it. You are constantly being judged. It is a life of exhilarating highs and abysmal lows. But I can’t bring myself to leave it, even when it treats me poorly.”

“Sounds like an abusive relationship,” Sebastian observes. He saw hundreds of them while he was a beat cop. Women, and sometimes men, who would fiercely defend their abusers, no matter how many times Sebastian tried to convince them to press charges.

There’s a silence on the other end of the line, and this time it’s awkward. Sebastian’s mind begins working furiously, and he knows that he’s extrapolating based on limited information, but if Stefano is so driven by the acceptance and praise of others that it keeps him tethered to the art community, it’s not unthinkable that he might have applied the same approach to his relationships with other people. Would he stay with someone who treated him badly if that person also said the right things at the right times? Yes, he would. Sebastian is sure, because that’s basically what happened with Theodore.

“Fuck,” Sebastian says finally. “That was the wrong thing to say, wasn’t it?”

“No,” Stefano’s voice is quiet, subdued. “That was very observant.”

“We don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to,” Sebastian says quickly. It’s not the first time his cop sense has gotten him into trouble like this, and he’s eager to move on to something else.

“There isn’t much to talk about,” Stefano replies, and there’s a coldness to his voice that wasn’t there before. “We all make poor decisions about whom we associate with from time to time. That’s all.”

Sebastian isn’t sure how to respond to that, so he doesn’t.

“What about you?” Stefano asks. His voice is warmer now and holds a note of genuine interest.

“What about me?” Sebastian says right back, because he has no idea where Stefano is going with this.

“With whom do you associate? You were married to a woman, but I haven’t scared you off yet. So, what about you?”

Sebastian is sure his mouth is actually hanging open when Stefano finishes speaking, and he’s glad Stefano isn’t there to see him. He closes it with some effort and collects his thoughts. He had some suspicions about Stefano’s sexuality based on his flamboyant mannerisms and style of dressing, but he tries not to jump to conclusions. Then, at dinner the other night Stefano had joked about seducing him, but the rest of their conversation that night was so significant, he’d forgotten about the comment until now.

He certainly doesn’t hold any contempt for gay men. He meets all kinds of people in his current job and did the same in his previous career, and he’s learned that things like gender identity and sexual orientation don’t matter as much as you would think when a crime has been committed. People are still victims and suspects and witnesses, no matter what they do in their personal lives.

That said, Sebastian has never had reason to give much thought to his own sexuality, and this is most assuredly not a discussion he thought he’d be having with Stefano of all people. He supposes he really shouldn’t be surprised though. Their conversation tonight has touched on some sensitive topics that probably would have led to deep conversations if one or both of them didn’t keep shying away as soon as the conversation got personal.

Maybe it’s exhaustion or the fact that he really doesn’t want Stefano to hang up, but having a personal conversation doesn’t necessarily seem like a bad thing at the moment. Stefano has already put a lot on the line, and Sebastian finds that he is willing to meet Stefano halfway, at least in the discussion.

“I’ve never been... involved with a man before if that’s what you’re asking,” Sebastian replies. “There were very few women before Myra and nobody since.”

“I’m hearing reluctance, but not rejection,” Stefano muses, suddenly seeming to be very much in his element. His voice is becoming soft and musical again, the way it was when Sebastian almost fainted in the museum. “Do you feel like it would be disloyal to Myra to pursue other… romantic possibilities?”

“No, it’s not that,” Sebastian answers quickly. “Myra was an amazing woman, but she and I grew apart even before she left to join up with Mobius.” He’s surprised to find that it’s not as difficult to talk about Myra this time. The history of their marriage, however troubled it may have been, is somehow an easier topic than the sacrifice she made in STEM.

“If Lily hadn’t been taken, then I don’t know… we might have grown old together and been very happy, but we just weren’t strong enough to make it through Lily’s disappearance. I guess we each handled it in our own way instead of handling it together, and we couldn’t come back from that.”

“Then does the thought of being intimate with a man disgust you?” Stefano asks.

Sebastian has to think on that one. Truth be told, he’s never thought about being intimate with “a man”. He actually can’t imagine being intimate with “a man”. But he can remember the warm weight of Stefano’s body in his arms, resting against his chest, and the gentle press of Stefano’s face into his neck. And he knows it’s perverse to think about it this way, because Stefano was dying at the time, but if he ignores the context, those sensations were not at all unpleasant.

And even though he often tries to tell himself that the only relationship that matters is to be a good father to Lily, if he’s honest with himself, he does want to have that connection with another person. He wants to be held. He wants to be understood. And if he’s really, really honest with himself, he’s not sure if it matters if that person is a man or a woman. He realizes that Stefano is still waiting patiently for his answer.

“No,” he says, because there’s no sense in lying to Stefano at this point. “I’m not sure exactly how I feel about it, but it doesn’t disgust me.”

“I can work with that,” Stefano replies.

“I take it you’ve been with men?” Sebastian asks.

“Oh, yes,” Stefano practically purrs, and Sebastian feels an involuntary thrill of excitement run down his spine. “I think you’ll be surprised by how natural it feels once you give it a try. To be with someone who has such intimate knowledge of how your body works can be quite exhilarating. And I assure you that I am as much a perfectionist in the bedroom as I am everywhere else.”

Sebastian wants to be alarmed at Stefano’s words, wants to tell Stefano that he has some nerve for saying such sophisticatedly dirty things in Sebastian’s ear with that crushed-velvet voice of his. What Sebastian does not plan on, however, is his own hand sliding inside of his robe, fingers trailing lightly over warm skin, drawing a little gasp from his mouth as Stefano continues.

“I know it’s been a long time, but surely you remember how it feels to cling to someone, to hold them close and feel that exquisite slide of skin on skin.” Sebastian’s hand drifts lower, tracing across his abdomen with slow, teasing strokes. Stefano keeps going, his voice dipping to a low rumble that makes his accent even more pronounced.

“It’s not as different as you might think. Still joining with another person-”

“Stop,” Sebastian says quickly, because he’s just given himself a firm squeeze through his pajama pants, and that is absolutely as far as this can go while Lily is asleep upstairs. He pulls his hand away and adjusts his robe to cover himself fully.

“I can’t… I’m in the living room, for god’s sake.” Sebastian is aware that his own voice sounds hoarse, strained, and Stefano can clearly hear it too, because he laughs warmly.

“Alright, we can talk about something else,” Stefano suggests, his voice still warm and familiar. “I do actually have another question for you.”

“Unrelated to what you were just talking about?” Sebastian checks, because despite his best efforts, Stefano has him a little riled up, and that needs to stop immediately.

“Completely unrelated,” Stefano assures him.

“Go ahead,” Sebastian replies.

"Was there a way to leave STEM?" Stefano asks. "Besides, Myra's solution, I mean. Or did they plan to keep me there forever?"

"They never planned to let any of the Union citizens leave," Sebastian says. "There was an extraction point. That's how Lily and I got out. But it required someone to operate it from outside STEM." Stefano hums noncommittally, and Sebastian continues.

"There was also an escape pod of some sort. I saw one of the Mobius agents use it. I don't know what happened to him though." He doesn't like to think about Sykes. He was one of the good ones, and Sebastian is almost sure he's dead.

"Escape pod?" repeats Stefano.

"Yes," Sebastian answers. "Well, actually, it was more of a bathtub, but-"

"Another bathtub?" Stefano sounds incredulous. "There must have been a hundred bathtubs in the room where I woke up. Do you seriously mean to say that this incredibly advanced technology is entirely based on a system of interconnected bathtubs?"

It does sound ridiculous when Stefano says it that way. It catches Sebastian off-guard, and he's laughing before he even fully processes the question. Stefano's laughing too, and the sound resonates in Sebastian's ear and sends little tendrils of warmth crawling through his chest. He does his best to muffle his own laughter behind his hand, for Lily's sake.

"It's true," Sebastian gasps between huffs of suppressed laughter, "STEM is mostly bathtubs." That sets them off again, and maybe he's overtired- maybe they're both overtired-, but in that moment, nothing is funnier than how fucking many bathtubs it takes to run STEM.

When they both calm down and catch their breath somewhat, Stefano says, "I'd like to see you again." And Sebastian is honestly surprised by how good that idea sounds to him.

"Sure," he answers. "Let me check our schedule for this week, and we'll figure something out."

"Do you feel better now?" Stefano asks.

"Yeah, I do actually," Sebastian says, and it’s the truth. "You?"

"Yes, much," Stefano replies. "I think I'll try to get a few hours of sleep."

"Alright," Sebastian says. "Bye."

"Ciao," says Stefano and hangs up.

Sebastian arches his back, stretching against the couch and feeling like he might able to get a few hours of sleep as well.

 

  
The next morning, Sebastian is in the kitchen, making coffee for himself and pancakes for Lily, when Lily bounds down the stairs, backpack in hand.

“Good morning sweetie,” Sebastian says, reaching out to ruffle her hair. She dodges him expertly and takes a seat at the kitchen table, eyeing him suspiciously.

“What was so funny?” She asks with no preamble.

“What?” Sebastian struggles to understand what she’s talking about.

“Last night. What was so funny?” She’s looking at him with her eyes narrowed, and Sebastian, not for the first time, wishes that maybe she wasn’t quite so perceptive, at least not about him.

“Oh, nothing really. I just thought of something funny that happened at work.” Sebastian doesn’t sound convincing even to himself, but he’s sure as hell not going to tell Lily that he’s been talking to Stefano.

“You were laughing.” Lily’s staring him down now, and even Sebastian has to admit that her intensity is a little frightening. “You never laugh.”

He opens his mouth to argue, to tell her that of course he laughs, but closes it abruptly when he realizes that she’s probably right. He can’t remember the last time he laughed, really laughed, like he did last night. He frowns as he slides the pancakes off the griddle and onto a plate.

“Well,” he says finally. “We’ll just have to make a point of laughing more.”

Lily smiles at that, and Sebastian sets down her breakfast plate in front of her.

“Eat up,” he says. “The bus will be here in twenty minutes.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noctambularis has created a lovely web comic based on a scene from this chapter that can be seen [here](http://noctambularis.tumblr.com/post/177487932756/negativespacefanartp2).


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian can feel his heart rate accelerating, can feel a warmth spreading through his body that has nothing to do with the coffee. It’s not unlike the fight-or-flight response that’s so familiar to him, and he’s determined not to run from it. Instead, he extends his hand to Stefano.
> 
> [Sebastian goes to Stefano's place "for coffee" and ends up in his bed.]

Sebastian tries hard not to be too impressed as he rides the elevator up to Stefano’s downtown apartment. Not only is it a nice building in the fancy part of town, but since he had to punch in a code Stefano gave him to access this floor, he’s pretty sure it’s a penthouse. Sure enough, when the elevator doors open, he’s basically in Stefano’s living room.

Stefano is seated on the couch, dressed in black slacks and a dark grey button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He rises gracefully to his feet as Sebastian steps out of the elevator.

“Good evening,” he says with a smile that is surprisingly warm for Stefano. “Let me take your coat.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian says as he shrugs off his trench coat and hands it to Stefano, who takes it and disappears down one of the hallways beside the elevator.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” Sebastian says, hopefully loudly enough that Stefano can still hear him. And he actually means it. It’s a spacious unit with high ceilings, one of those ones that the people on the home improvement channel at 2 AM are always calling “open concept”, and the decoration is surprisingly tasteful. The color scheme- black, white, and deep red- does remind Sebastian a bit of Stefano’s studio in STEM, but it’s not alarming to look at.

“Thank you,” Stefano calls back to him. “Please take a look around. I’ll just be a moment.”

There are a few large framed photographs on the walls, undoubtedly Stefano’s work, but there isn’t anything obviously gory or frightening. There’s an old movie playing on the TV over the fireplace, something black and white and not in English. Sebastian has no hope of understanding it, but the classical score is soothing, and the smell of fresh coffee wafts through the room, reminding Sebastian that Stefano invited him over “for coffee”. Based on their conversation earlier in the week, Sebastian is sure that Stefano has more than just coffee planned for tonight. Sebastian’s not sure whether he’s more nervous or excited by that idea, and he doesn’t have time to figure it out before Stefano is sweeping back into the room and heading for the kitchen.

“Thank you so much for coming,” he says. “I’m sure it’s not easy to spend time away from Lily.”

“Tonight worked out well,” Sebastian replies as he follows Stefano into the kitchen. “She’s sleeping over with a friend.” Lily had been begging him to go to the sleepover birthday party all week. Even though it’s not her first sleepover, Sebastian still isn’t used to her being away from home overnight, and he’s more than a little relieved to be here with Stefano instead of alone with his thoughts. The rational part of his brain knows that Lily will be one hundred percent fine at her friend’s house, as she reminded him for the seventeenth time when he dropped her off earlier this evening, but Sebastian finds that the longer he’s alone, the more that rational part of his brain gets lost in increasingly improbable scenarios about how Lily could be in danger. He touches his pants pocket just to make sure that his phone is still there in case Lily calls.

“Ah, very good,” Stefano says as he retrieves mugs from an upper cabinet and sets them on the counter. “So you can stay for a while.” He catches Sebastian’s eye and gives him a small smile. It’s not like any smile that Sebastian has seen on Stefano’s face, but before he can figure it out, Stefano has turned back to the mugs and is pouring coffee into them.

“Please, have a seat,” Stefano nods towards the living room before picking up the mugs and walking around the counter to join Sebastian.

Sebastian considers the available seating options and takes a seat at one end of the couch. It’s some kind of suede-like material, very soft and very comfortable, and as he settles back against the cushions, he wonders how long it’s been since he actually had a full night of sleep and whether Stefano will be offended if Sebastian nods off on his couch. Then Stefano is placing a mug of hot coffee in Sebastian’s hand and sitting down at the other end of the couch with his own mug. He turns the volume of the TV down until it’s background noise and then faces Sebastian.

Sebastian, having no idea what to say at this point, raises his coffee mug to his lips and takes a long sip. Across from him, Stefano does the same. The coffee is excellent, or at least better than what Sebastian makes at home for himself, and it brings a pleasant warmth to his whole body.

“Good coffee,” Sebastian comments, mostly to break the silence between them.

“Thank you,” Stefano says. He opens his mouth as though he’s going to say something else, but seems to think better of it and sips his coffee again. Sebastian takes a deep breath.

“You didn’t invite me over here just for coffee, did you?” Sebastian asks, even though he already knows the answer.

“No,” Stefano answers with a smile, and this time Sebastian notices a hint of tension. Stefano’s nervous, which isn’t surprising given the situation. Sebastian’s own heart is beating a little faster just making eye contact with Stefano. Stefano sets his mug down on the coffee table and folds his hands in his lap.

“I invited you over because ever since that day at the museum- no, ever since Union-, I find myself… preoccupied with you.” Stefano is actually starting to blush a little, at least on the side of his face that Sebastian can see, but he holds Sebastian’s gaze and continues, “I want to feel your hands on my body again, to hear your voice in my ear, and so much more.”

Sebastian can feel his heart rate accelerating, can feel a warmth spreading through his body that has nothing to do with the coffee. It’s not unlike the fight-or-flight response that’s so familiar to him, and he’s determined not to run from it. Instead, he sets his coffee mug down on the table and extends his hand to Stefano.

“Come here then,” Sebastian says. Stefano grasps his hand like a drowning man, but Sebastian doesn’t have time to dwell on that because he’s pulling Stefano to him across the couch. Stefano’s hand feels cool in his, but the skin-to-skin contact lights a fire in his belly, and Sebastian doesn’t stop until Stefano is sitting directly beside him, their legs pressed together from knee to hip.

Feeling Stefano’s leg against his is tantalizing, but he wants more, needs more, and he wraps his arms around Stefano’s waist, pulling him into a strong embrace and burying his face in Stefano’s shoulder. He can feel Stefano’s arms around him, hugging him tightly, but all that matters in that moment is holding Stefano against him and breathing in the scent of his aftershave and not crying because a wave of nostalgia hits him and he remembers that the last person he held this way was Myra. Suddenly, it’s as though a wound he didn’t even know about has been ripped open, and Stefano is a soothing balm that he needs to bear the pain, to fill the void that gnaws inside his chest. Sebastian’s clinging to him desperately, probably squeezing him too tightly, Sebastian realizes, as his own breaths are getting dangerously close to sobs.

He loosens his arms a little bit but keeps his face hidden against Stefano’s shoulder and takes several long, shaky breaths, trying to get himself back under control as Stefano rubs his back and tells him that he’s alright. Stefano’s voice is soothing, almost hypnotic, and after a minute, Sebastian feels confident enough to raise his head, draw his body back and look at Stefano.

“Sorry,” Sebastian says. “That’s not usually my opening move.”

“No matter,” says Stefano, “I enjoyed it. We don’t have to do anything more than that if you don’t wish to.” Stefano’s hands are still on his shoulders, squeezing gently, but the look on Stefano’s face, the genuine affection and concern, is almost more than Sebastian can bear. So he pulls Stefano in for another hug.

He can feel Stefano shifting into the embrace this time, turning his body and bringing one of his legs up onto the couch so that he can press closer to Sebastian, which Sebastian thinks is a spectacular idea, so he goes one step further and lies back against the cushions, pulling Stefano down with him until Stefano is lying fully on his chest. It’s still awkward, since both of Sebastian’s feet are on the floor, which puts one of his legs in the way of a more satisfying arrangement, but the increased body contact is amazing. Stefano is a warm weight that presses down on him, grounds him, makes him feel secure in a way he didn’t know he wanted.

Sebastian is relieved to find that it’s easier to get control of himself this time, and, although he really doesn’t want to let go of Stefano, he loosens his hold. Stefano sits up partially so that his face is about a foot away from Sebastian’s, bracing one of his hands on the back of the couch while the other remains on Sebastian’s shoulder.

Sebastian raises one of his hands to touch Stefano’s cheek, the one that isn’t covered by his hair. “And what if I want to do more?” Sebastian asks.

Stefano starts to lean in toward his face, and Sebastian experiences a moment of self-doubt, of concern about whether he’s qualified to do this with another man. It must show on his face, because Stefano pauses, flashes him a coy smile, and says, “Don’t worry. This part is exactly the same.”

Sebastian almost laughs, but then Stefano’s lips are on his, and they are soft and warm and pliant, and Sebastian can’t believe he’s gone this long without kissing someone. His hand has shifted from Stefano’s cheek to cradle the back of his head, but much too soon, Stefano is pulling back, looking at Sebastian’s face to gauge his reaction.

Sebastian decides that the best way to demonstrate his continued interest is to grab a handful of Stefano’s hair and pull Stefano’s mouth back down to his own. This kiss is more Sebastian’s speed, wild and reckless and nearly bruising in its intensity. Stefano gasps, and Sebastian takes the opportunity to thrust his tongue into Stefano’s mouth, which is hot and slick and tastes of coffee. Stefano’s tongue strokes his, light and teasing, but Sebastian has to have more.

With one hand still tangled in Stefano’s hair, Sebastian slides his other hand from Stefano’s waist down to his ass, where he gives a firm squeeze that causes Stefano to moan into his mouth and press his body hard against Sebastian’s. Sebastian can already feel a pleasant tingling in his lower belly, can feel himself getting hard, which is a little embarrassing because the last time he got this excited from making out fully clothed on a couch was probably when he was a teenager.

Sebastian pulls back a little and bites lightly on Stefano’s lower lip before claiming his mouth again. He digs his fingers into Stefano’s ass, massaging it in time with the movements of their mouths. Stefano emits another breathless moan and tries to rut forward against him, but huffs in frustration when he encounters Sebastian’s leg in his way. He pulls away and sits up, face flushed and pupil dilated with lust.

“Shoes,” he says abruptly, kicking his own off and gesturing toward Sebastian’s. Sebastian’s first reaction is to chuckle at this less-than-eloquent Stefano who is clearly torn between the urge to fuck Sebastian through the couch and his disdain for having people’s shoes on his furniture. But getting more body contact from Stefano sounds so appealing to Sebastian right now that he doesn’t have the heart to comment.

He then realizes that his preference for boots is going to make this a lot more complicated. Stefano seems to realize it too, because he leans over Sebastian and starts helping, and after several seconds of swearing and laughing and fumbling with laces, they manage to get Sebastian’s boots off. As an afterthought, Sebastian takes his cell phone out of his pocket and sets it on the table next to his coffee mug.

Stefano sits back on his heels to give Sebastian room to swing his legs fully onto the couch, and then Stefano pounces on him like a jungle cat, lying full length on Sebastian with one of his legs between Sebastian’s and his hands fisted in Sebastian’s shirt like a predator’s claws. Sebastian doesn’t mind being prey in this case, because it feels unbelievable to have Stefano’s whole body against his, to finally have some pressure on his growing erection, to have Stefano’s tongue exploring his mouth, tangling urgently with his own tongue.

Sebastian brings both hands back to Stefano’s ass, squeezing and pulling Stefano down against him as he thrusts up to meet Stefano’s body. He can feel that Stefano’s hard too, and why does that turn him on so much? Stefano’s erection pressing into his own hardness, Stefano’s lightly-muscled body moving against him, and Stefano’s warm, inviting mouth are all undeniably arousing. Sebastian’s body seems to have no issues with the fact that Stefano is a man, and while he’s not ready to make any bold statements about his sexuality, Sebastian is quickly discovering that this is absolutely what he wants to be doing with Stefano right now.

Sebastian is also discovering that he desperately needs to feel Stefano’s skin, so he lets one of his hands roam up Stefano’s body and grab a handful of his shirt, tugging it loose from his pants so that his hand can slide underneath and splay across Stefano’s back. Stefano’s skin is warm and soft and everything Sebastian hoped for, and the little groan that Stefano makes is just a bonus. Stefano pulls back from the kiss and begins mouthing his way along Sebastian’s jaw line, only slightly inhibited by Sebastian's beard, until he reaches his ear, where he whispers huskily, “I need to touch more of you.”

“Please,” Sebastian gasps back, and Stefano releases his handfuls of Sebastian’s shirt, only to move to the buttons, which he tackles impatiently as he kisses his way down Sebastian’s neck, and goddamn it when did his neck get so sensitive and is that Stefano’s tongue he’s feeling? Before Sebastian can get a coherent thought together, Stefano is yanking his shirt open, growling in frustration at his undershirt, and sliding his hands underneath it to plant both of them firmly on Sebastian’s chest.

Sebastian is in sensory overload between Stefano’s hands, which are finally, finally touching his bare skin, Stefano’s mouth, which is currently nibbling at his collar bone in a way that sends shivers down his spine, and Stefano’s cock, which is rubbing up against his own with even more urgency than before. He can hear the blood rushing in his ears, and he’s almost dizzy with pleasure, and he still needs to be closer, so he pulls Stefano even harder against him.

Stefano responds by sliding his hands, still under Sebastian’s shirt, around to his back for better leverage. The friction is perfect, and Stefano is starting to lose his rhythm, forgetting what he’s doing with his mouth and just gasping against Sebastian’s neck, shameless in his excitement as he grinds his erection against Sebastian’s.

Sebastian wants to get more of his clothes off, wants to feel more of Stefano’s skin, but he can feel his own climax approaching and right now it’s just more important that Stefano doesn’t stop touching him, doesn’t stop panting and moaning and thrusting against him. The pleasure is building, his muscles go tense as his hips press up into Stefano’s, and he pulls Stefano down onto him, feels a stab of exquisite pleasure/pain as Stefano’s teeth find his collar bone again, and climaxes. The orgasm rips through his body like a lightning strike, tears a groan from his throat, and just for a moment, he’s completely boneless, floating in warmth and comfort, and gradually receding pleasure.

When he opens his eyes, which he doesn’t remember closing, Stefano is looking at him with an expression that is both triumphant and visibly agitated.

“Don’t stop,” Sebastian says, giving Stefano’s ass another squeeze. “I want to see you come.”

Stefano’s eye goes wide at this, and he dips his head for another kiss before he buries his face in Sebastian’s neck and begins rutting against him again.

“That’s right, just do what feels good,” Sebastian growls in Stefano’s ear, and if the urgency of Stefano’s thrusts and the soft moans he’s making are any indication, Sebastian’s voice is helping him along, so Sebastian keeps talking, hoping that he doesn’t sound too silly.

“You made me feel so fucking good, Stefano,” Sebastian says, as his hand slides up and down Stefano’s back, and he raises one of his legs a little between Stefano’s to give him something more substantial to rub against. “Want to make you feel good too.”

Stefano’s emitting a little whine now with every breath, and his thrusts are becoming frantic and irregular. Sebastian can tell he’s close, and even though he’s wiped out from his own orgasm, Stefano’s movements and his noises and his intensity are so intoxicating that Sebastian finds himself taken in all over again, and he groans into Stefano’s ear, “Go ahead, come for me.”

Stefano drives himself down into Sebastian one more time, and cries out, a choked, gasping moan that goes straight to Sebastian’s own cock, even though there’s no way he could be ready for another round so soon. He continues to hold Stefano as he jerks and twitches against him, rubbing his back as his breathing slows down. Stefano sighs deeply and shifts over between Sebastian and the back of the couch, taking some of his weight off Sebastian, but leaving one arm and one leg thrown over him, and resting his head on Sebastian’s chest.

“Was that to your liking?” Stefano asks. There’s a hint of smugness in his tone, and Sebastian can imagine the smirk on his face without even having to see it.

“That was fucking amazing,” Sebastian answers, not because Stefano’s ego needs to be any bigger, but because there really is no other way to describe what just happened. “But I think I’ve completely ruined my underwear, and also possibly my pants.”

Stefano laughs. “As have I. Hold on, I probably have something that will fit you.” He lifts his head and presses a gentle kiss to Sebastian’s lips before climbing over him, setting his feet on the floor and promptly stumbling over Sebastian’s boots. Sebastian reaches out a hand to steady him, and Stefano takes it and kicks the offending boots and his own shoes under the coffee table. He gives Sebastian’s hand a little squeeze before he releases it and walks away down the hall.

Sebastian watches him go, still looking a little unsteady on his feet and with his pants wrinkled and his shirt un-tucked in the back, and feels something a lot like satisfaction. Disheveled is a surprisingly good look for Stefano.

Sebastian swings his legs over the side of the couch and sits up, reaching for his coffee mug automatically, only to discover that the coffee has basically reached room temperature. As he sets it down, his cell phone beeps, and he picks it up to see a text message from Lily.

_I’m still fine. Goodnight Dad._

Sebastian laughs, because Lily has definitely inherited his dry sense of humor.

 _Goodnight sweetie_ , he texts back, hoping that her friends aren’t around so that he doesn’t get yelled at later for calling her “sweetie”. He assumes that she’s found some privacy in order to text him at all.

He’s setting his phone back down on the table when Stefano reappears with a pair of pajama pants in his hand.

“Come with me. I’ll show you to the bathroom,” Stefano says, reaching his hand out for Sebastian, who takes it and stands up, feeling a little light-headed himself. He grabs his phone before following after Stefano, who leads him down the hall to a small guest bathroom and hands him the pants.

Sebastian strips off his pants and underwear, both of which are in pretty bad shape, and cleans himself up as much as he can, because he’s not sure what other activities Stefano has in mind for tonight, but he’s definitely up for all of them. He’s surprised to find that the pants are only an inch or two short, so he doesn’t look too ridiculous. He also doubts he’ll be wearing them for very long.

When Sebastian emerges from the bathroom, Stefano is standing there in his own pair of pajama pants, which looks out of place with his rumpled dress shirt. Stefano isn’t quite meeting Sebastian’s eyes, almost as if he’s suffering a moment of shyness, as he takes Sebastian’s soiled clothes and pads down the hall to the laundry room. Sebastian follows and stands in the doorway, trying not to laugh at the idea of Stefano doing something as mundane as laundry. Once the washer is started, Stefano approaches Sebastian, takes his hand, and leans in close to his ear.

“Come to bed,” Stefano practically purrs, and Sebastian would probably do anything as long as Stefano said it in that voice. Stefano leads him to the end of the hall and into a large bedroom. The color scheme is similar to the living room, but there are also long red velvet curtains here, and everything is just so… Stefano. The room is softly lit by a variety of lamps so different from the harsh studio lights Sebastian remembers from STEM, and Stefano’s bed looks inviting.

Sebastian doesn’t have much time to look around, because Stefano is suddenly right there with his arms wrapped around Sebastian’s shoulders and his lips on Sebastian’s, and Sebastian is tossing his cell phone haphazardly onto a dresser and pulling Stefano’s body flush against his. Sebastian’s cock isn’t up for another round just yet, but he’s not going to turn down the chance for more body contact with Stefano.

It feels just as amazing as the first time, but without the urgency and desperation, and Sebastian finds that he can simply enjoy the way Stefano’s body feels pressed up against his, the way Stefano sucks at his lower lip, then tugs on it gently with his teeth. Then Stefano reaches behind Sebastian, and the room is plunged into darkness.

Sebastian makes a surprised noise against Stefano’s mouth, and Stefano pulls away.

“What’s wrong?” Stefano asks.

“I’d rather be able to see you if that’s alright,” Sebastian replies. He’s never been particularly shy about his own body, and he’s certain that he wants to see more of Stefano.

“Oh,” Stefano says and pauses briefly. “Yes, of course.” Then the lights are back on, and clearly Stefano is using some sort of master switch, because all of the light sources in the room respond at once.

There’s a hint of surprise still visible on Stefano’s face as he looks back at Sebastian, but Sebastian gives him a reassuring smile and raises a hand to cup his cheek as he moves in to kiss him again. As his mouth moves against Stefano’s, Sebastian traces the uncovered side of Stefano’s face with his fingertips. He’s not sure how sensitive Stefano is about the other side of his face, the one covered by his hair, or whether there’s some other part of his body he’s concerned about, but he doesn’t want to push that issue now, doesn’t want to ruin the perfect feeling of holding and kissing Stefano.

Stefano’s hands have moved to grasp the front of Sebastian’s still-unbuttoned shirt and pull it off his shoulders. Sebastian shrugs out of it and lets it fall to the floor as Stefano grabs the hem of his undershirt. Sebastian breaks the kiss for a moment to help Stefano pull the undershirt over his head and toss it to the floor as well.

The look in Stefano’s eye as he gazes at Sebastian’s bare chest is positively predatory, and Sebastian is starting to feel the first flutterings of renewed arousal in his belly as Stefano places his hands on Sebastian’s chest and presses him backwards until the backs of his legs hit the bed. Stefano doesn’t stop there, guiding Sebastian back until he’s lying with his head propped up on one of Stefano’s many pillows with Stefano lying half on top of him.

Stefano’s bed is warm and soft and smells like Stefano, and Sebastian worries for a moment that he is in real danger of falling asleep right then and there. Luckily Stefano chooses that moment to indulge Sebastian with a particularly indecent kiss, one that’s hot and wet and involves Stefano’s tongue thrusting deeply into his mouth, and Sebastian realizes there are much more important things than sleep.

Sebastian is even more convinced when Stefano’s mouth leaves his and begins to travel down his jaw line, along his throat, to his collar bone to place an apologetic lick at the place where Stefano bit him earlier. Stefano’s hands are all over his chest and abdomen and his touch is warm and pleasant and so very exciting. His fingers brush over one of Sebastian’s nipples, and Sebastian draws his breath in sharply because he is so fucking sensitive there, and how has he never noticed that before?

Stefano’s fingers stay there, trailing gently back and forth, and he lifts his head to give Sebastian a devious smirk before he bends down again and begins a full assault on Sebastian’s other nipple with his mouth.

“Oh, God!” Sebastian moans, because the feeling of Stefano’s fingers, squeezing and pinching and tugging at one nipple is only overpowered by the feeling of Stefano’s mouth on the other. And Stefano has clearly done this before. He alternates between soft, teasing licks, scrapes of his teeth, and actual bites that send white-hot jolts of pleasure through Sebastian’s body, making him yelp and fist his hands in the sheets. In no time at all, Sebastian is rock hard again and jerking his hips against thin air, trying desperately to get some stimulation back where he needs it.

And Stefano doesn’t disappoint. Just when Sebastian thinks he can’t take any more teasing, Stefano slides a hand down his belly to squeeze him through the thin material of his pants, and Sebastian thrusts up into his hand, because that is exactly where he needs Stefano to touch him and thank god Stefano finally got there.

“Fuck!” Sebastian almost shouts, wondering briefly if Stefano has any neighbors they should be worried about. He forgets that immediately though, because Stefano’s hand is still groping and massaging his cock. It’s not the kind of consistent rhythm that will bring him closer to the edge, but it is making him unbearably hard and Stefano’s mouth, which is now leaving kisses and nips all over his chest, isn’t helping.

With a groan of frustration, Sebastian releases his grip on the sheets and grabs Stefano by the shoulders, pulling him back up to eye level. Sebastian’s hands move to the buttons of Stefano’s shirt, but they’re much too small, and he’s fumbling and considering just ripping the goddamn shirt off because he needs more of Stefano’s skin on him now. Stefano heaves a sigh of mock exasperation and unbuttons the shirt himself, sitting up for a moment to pull it off and discard it on the floor.

He’s barely managed that when Sebastian grabs him, dragging him back down to the bed and onto Sebastian’s chest, and fuck if having Stefano’s naked chest pressed up against his doesn’t feel fucking fantastic. They’re both panting now, and Sebastian’s hands are moving up and down Stefano’s back, trying to soak up as much warmth and contact as he possibly can, and even so, he wants to be closer to Stefano, wants to touch more of him, so he slips one hand under the waistband of Stefano’s pants to grab his ass.

Stefano goes tense against him and moans something in Italian that is probably very dirty. Even though Sebastian has no idea what he’s saying, the way Stefano’s voice shakes tells him everything he needs to know. Sebastian lets his hand explore, stroking and squeezing, dipping in between Stefano’s cheeks to brush against his opening. Stefano presses back against Sebastian’s hand, practically whining in frustration. Sebastian has no experience in this area, but he’s pretty sure that some kind of lubrication is required to do anything more than what he’s doing, so he simply continues to move his fingers in light, teasing strokes until Stefano finally growls and sits up, dislodging Sebastian’s hand from his ass.

Stefano shifts off of Sebastian, fights his way out of his own pants and socks, and then divests Sebastian of his.

“What do you want, Sebastian?” Stefano asks. His voice is thick with lust, and Sebastian’s not even sure what he wants except that it’s more of Stefano.

“You,” Sebastian answers with the only coherent thought he can muster, grabbing Stefano’s wrist and pulling him down again. Sebastian rolls over onto Stefano, pressing the entire length of their bodies together. The sensation is just as perfect as he imagined it would be. Stefano is warm and solid and so alive in his arms, and without thinking, he presses a kiss to Stefano’s forehead. When Sebastian pulls back to look at Stefano, there’s a slight smile on his face.

“I mean, how do you want me?” Stefano asks. “Shall I use my hands? Shall I take you in my mouth? Do you wish to fuck me?”

Sebastian’s head is spinning just listening to Stefano speaking these words, and it’s a testament to his willpower that he doesn’t come on the spot.

“I… What do you want?” Sebastian asks, shifting some of his weight off of Stefano and running a hand up his chest.

Stefano doesn’t hesitate. “I want to taste your cock.” He holds Sebastian’s gaze for a second, then glances away, a slight blush creeping onto his face. “May I?”

“Of course,” Sebastian answers, because after the way Stefano was kissing him earlier, he can’t imagine what that mouth will feel like on his cock.

“Should I..?” Sebastian gestures to the edge of the bed.

“Yes,” replies Stefano. Sebastian sits up and moves to the edge of the bed, letting his legs fall open as Stefano grabs a pillow and drops it on the floor between Sebastian’s feet. Sebastian considers telling Stefano that at the rate things are going, he’s probably not going to be down there that long, but then Stefano is kneeling before him and running his hands lightly up Sebastian’s thighs, and Sebastian is so charged with anticipation that he’s not sure he can remember how to speak.

One of Stefano’s hands closes around the base of Sebastian’s cock, which stands proudly, already leaking pre-cum. The pressure of Stefano’s hand alone is causing Sebastian’s breathing to accelerate, and when Stefano’s tongue begins to lap at the head of his cock, Sebastian almost forgets how to breathe entirely. Stefano is nothing if not thorough, making long sweeping strokes with tongue, bathing the head of Sebastian’s cock thoroughly before drawing it fully into his mouth and hollowing his cheeks, exerting a suction that’s almost too much, because Sebastian is already so close.

Sebastian’s hips jerk forward involuntarily, and he grabs for the only thing he can reach, which is Stefano’s head. Stefano pauses with Sebastian’s cock still in his mouth, allowing Sebastian to compose himself, release the handfuls of Stefano’s hair that he’s grasping, and mutter an apology. Stefano hums in acceptance or amusement, Sebastian isn’t sure which, and slides his mouth down onto Sebastian, engulfing him in tight, wet heat, until his lips touch his hand, which is still wrapped around the base of Sebastian’s cock.

“Oh, fuck! Stefano!” Sebastian groans, and his hands are back on Stefano’s head, though he’s taking more care this time, letting them rest there without any pressure or hair-pulling. Stefano slides his mouth back up to the tip of Sebastian’s cock, dragging his tongue along it, and the friction is beautiful and Sebastian is fighting to keep his hips still, to not thrust into Stefano’s mouth with abandon.

Stefano swirls his tongue around the head again before taking Sebastian fully in his mouth, even deeper this time and beginning to slowly bob his head up and down. Every movement of Stefano’s mouth makes Sebastian burn even hotter, every flick of his tongue, every squeeze of his hand, every torturously slow slide of his lips along Sebastian’s length. Sebastian knows he’s probably making some embarrassing noises, but he can’t bring himself to care about anything except Stefano’s mouth and Stefano’s hand. Stefano’s other hand is cupping his balls, squeezing lightly, tugging them gently away from Sebastian’s body, rolling them between his fingers, as Sebastian moans and swears and rakes his fingers through Stefano’s hair.

Sebastian can feel his climax approaching all too quickly, but he’s powerless to do anything to delay it. He needs to come so badly and Stefano’s mouth and hands are relentless, bringing him closer and closer to the brink. When Stefano works his way back up to the head of Sebastian’s cock and pauses to deliver several rough, focuses licks to the slit there, Sebastian cries out, then says through gritted teeth, “Oh God, Stefano! Gonna come!”

Sebastian half expects Stefano to pull back and finish him off with his hand, but instead Stefano slides his mouth all the way down Sebastian’s cock, and when Sebastian feels himself hit the back of Stefano’s throat, he’s coming so hard his vision whites out. He slumps forward, his breathing ragged, and presses a kiss to the top of Stefano’s head.

Stefano slowly slides his mouth back up, releasing Sebastian’s cock, which is so sensitive that even Stefano’s carefully retreating lips make Sebastian squirm a little. He lifts his head and looks Sebastian in the eye, and Sebastian is reaching for him, lifting him up onto his lap, and kissing deeply. Sebastian doesn’t mind the taste of himself on Stefano’s tongue as much as he thought he would, and kissing Stefano is too pleasant to worry about that anyway. When they part for air, Sebastian is still breathing hard, and Stefano looks pleased with himself.

“Now what?” Sebastian asks with a smile, gesturing towards Stefano’s neglected cock, which is still impressively hard.

“Oh,” Stefano glances down as though he’s noticing it for the first time. “You don’t need to worry about that.” Sebastian leans forward, pressing a kiss to Stefano’s temple.

“I want to do something for you,” Sebastian murmurs into Stefano’s ear, feeling Stefano shiver against him at the words.

“That’s really not necessary,” Stefano whispers back, and Sebastian’s not sure when Stefano decided that his own pleasure isn’t important or who convinced him of that, but he’s not taking no for an answer, unless of course Stefano unequivocally asks him to stop. He takes Stefano by the hips.

“Turn around,” Sebastian growls in Stefano’s ear, and Stefano obeys immediately, turning around so that he’s sitting in Sebastian’s lap with his back against Sebastian’s chest. Sebastian slides his hands down Stefano’s thighs, guiding his legs to rest outside of Sebastian’s. Sebastian’s hands move back up Stefano’s legs, one taking a firm hold of his hip and the other curling around his cock. Stefano gasps and presses forward into Sebastian’s hand.

“Do you have any…?” Sebastian is too embarrassed to finish the question, but luckily Stefano understands and he’s leaning over to the bedside table, grabbing a bottle of lube and placing it in Sebastian’s hand. Sebastian pours a little into his hand and tosses the bottle onto the sheets beside them. When he grasps Stefano’s cock this time, everything’s slick and warm and Stefano slides easily along his hand.

Stefano’s not circumcised, which is new for Sebastian, but it only takes a few experimental strokes and careful attention to Stefano’s reactions to figure out where to rub and where to squeeze and where Stefano is too sensitive to be touched right now. Once he feels confident with the equipment, Sebastian begins to stroke in earnest, trying to establish a rhythm that matches the thrusting of Stefano’s hips and the sighs and moans that escape Stefano’s mouth with every move of his hand.

Sebastian moves his own legs apart so that Stefano’s legs are spread wide, and his other hand leaves Stefano’s hip to cradle his balls, fondling them gently. Stefano’s head falls back against Sebastian’s shoulder, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he seems to give himself over to Sebastian’s touch. Stefano’s hands are fisted in the sheets on either side of them, and his body flexes against Sebastian’s with every stroke of Sebastian’s hand.

Sebastian is surprised to find that this doesn’t feel at all unnatural, but then realizes that what he’s doing to Stefano right now is basically what he enjoys himself. The angle and position are almost the same, so of course it feels perfectly natural to him. He continues to stroke and squeeze, adding in a little twist of his wrist every so often, which makes Stefano gasp.

Stefano seems to be enjoying himself immensely, so Sebastian is a little confused when Stefano releases the sheets and reaches for the lube again. He seizes Sebastian’s wrist, and Sebastian obediently releases Stefano’s balls so that Stefano can spread lube onto Sebastian’s fingers. Sebastian’s not one hundred percent sure what he’s supposed to be doing until Stefano guides Sebastian’s hand back down between his legs, but further back this time, so that he’s rubbing up against Stefano’s opening.

Once Sebastian gets the idea, Stefano releases his hand and takes hold of the sheets again, head thrown back against Sebastian’s shoulder. Sebastian tries to keep the rhythm of his hand on Stefano’s cock, as he also teases Stefano’s opening with slick fingertips. Stefano’s moaning and whining and squirming against him now, and Sebastian is feeling a little braver and allows one of his fingers to press gently against Stefano until it’s sliding into his body. Stefano cries out then, trying to grind down onto Sebastian’s finger, but unable to make any progress because he’s still sitting on Sebastian’s lap.

Sebastian dips his head to kiss Stefano’s cheek, working his finger in a little deeper as Stefano pants and thrashes his head against Sebastian’s chest. The angle’s all wrong, and Sebastian can’t go as deep as he wants to , as Stefano clearly wants him to, but he slides his finger in and out, moving it around as much as he can while he continues to stroke Stefano’s cock, and within seconds, Stefano is tensing around Sebastian’s finger and under Sebastian’s hand. He’s gasping something, but the only words Sebastian can make out are “fuck” and “Sebastian” and “please”. One more stroke and Stefano is coming, spilling his seed on his chest and legs and probably the sheets somewhere, because Sebastian has never really had to aim someone else’s cum before.

Stefano slumps back, limp against Sebastian, who kisses his face and the side of his neck and carefully eases his finger out of Stefano’s body. He wraps his arms around Stefano, just holding him for a few moments, as Stefano hums contentedly.

When Stefano has recovered a little and starts to sit up, Sebastian shifts him off of his lap and onto the bed.

“Hold on,” Sebastian says and gets up, heading into Stefano’s bathroom. He lets the water run for a few seconds to warm up, then washes his hands and wets a washcloth for Stefano. When he returns to the bedroom, Stefano is lying back on the bed with both hands over his face.

“Hey there,” Sebastian says, touching Stefano lightly on the knee before he begins to carefully wipe down Stefano’s chest and legs. Stefano murmurs his thanks, but doesn’t move his hands, and Sebastian finishes up and tosses the washcloth in the general direction of the bathroom. He bends over Stefano, pressing a kiss to what would be Stefano’s forehead if Stefano’s fingers weren’t in the way.

“Be right back,” Sebastian says. He returns to the laundry room to switch their clothes to the dryer. On the way back into the bedroom, he checks the alarm on his phone to make sure he’ll wake up in time to pick up Lily. Stefano is still in exactly the same position as before, and Sebastian isn’t sure what to make of that. Considering how many issues Sebastian himself has, he’s not about to fault Stefano for having a few of his own.

Sebastian slips his arms under Stefano and lifts him from the bed. Stefano seems mildly alarmed at first, and his hands fly away from his face to grab Sebastian’s shoulder. Balancing Stefano in one arm, Sebastian turns the bed down, though somewhat messily, and deposits Stefano in it. Sebastian crosses the room and turns off the lights, then climbs into bed next to Stefano, who has rolled onto his side facing away from Sebastian.

Sebastian wraps an arm around Stefano and pulls him closer until he’s flush against Sebastian’s chest, then kisses the back of Stefano’s shoulder and whispers in his ear.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Stefano whispers back. “That was perfect. You were perfect.” He turns around in Sebastian’s arms and presses forward into Sebastian’s chest, wrapping his arms around Sebastian.

“You weren’t so bad yourself,” Sebastian replies, and he can feel Stefano’s body shaking with suppressed laughter.

“Goodnight,” Stefano says, his voice barely audible.

“‘Night,” Sebastian replies. He has several more relatively important questions for Stefano, but suddenly the entire day- no, the last five years- catches up to him, and he’s blissfully unconscious, drifting in a pleasantly dreamless sleep for the first time in quite a while.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If I didn’t know better, I would say you have ulterior motives,” Sebastian observes.
> 
> “Perhaps,” Stefano smiles at him, “but you’re wearing far too many clothes to have an opinion on anything right now.”
> 
> [Sebastian and Stefano spend some quality time in Sebastian's room, until they must face the consequences of their actions.]

Stefano is due to arrive in ten minutes, and Sebastian is almost certain that this is a bad idea. Up to this point, he’s been careful to keep Stefano away from their home, away from Lily. He’s been playing it safe, which is the only way to do things where Lily is involved.

But he also knows that Stefano has shared so much of himself, has let Sebastian into his life and his home, and in a way, he wants to reciprocate. He remembers Sunday morning and waking up next to Stefano. Actually, waking up wrapped around Stefano is more like it. It felt incredibly warm and safe and right, and Sebastian hit the snooze on his phone alarm once just to get a few more minutes of holding Stefano, a few more lazy, half-asleep kisses, and a few more incoherent mumblings from Stefano that just made Sebastian laugh and hold him tighter.

He’s pretty sure they could have had another round, based on the way Stefano was rubbing up against him once he started to wake up a bit more, but by that point Sebastian really did have to leave to pick up Lily on time, so he had extracted himself from Stefano’s embrace with many more kisses and apologies and reassurances that they’d do this again soon. When he’d pulled up at Lily’s friend’s house and Lily had hopped into the passenger seat, she’d given him a shrewd look and immediately asked why he was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing when he dropped her off. He’d made up a plausible excuse about a stake-out for a client that lasted all night, and Lily had twisted her mouth to the side and narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, but then started describing something funny that happened at the sleepover.

Lily is smart- too smart-, and Sebastian hates lying to her, hates hiding her from Stefano, hates everything about the current arrangement except the private time he spends with each of them. It can’t last. He knows it can’t last, but he also doesn’t know what to do. He feels like he’s reached the point with Stefano where he knows him well enough, understands his motivations well enough, that Sebastian could be comfortable with Lily and Stefano being in the same room, but he’s terrified of what Lily’s reaction would be. Would she be willing to give Stefano another chance? Would she hate Sebastian for even talking to Stefano in the first place? Would it set her back in her recovery from the whole STEM ordeal?

It’s mid-morning on Tuesday, so Lily is safely at school, and this seems like as good a time as any to have Stefano over for a few hours. Sebastian’s mind starts to wander to what those hours might hold, remembering Stefano’s smooth, warm skin, Stefano’s enticing moans, the way Stefano moved against him when-. The doorbell rings.

Sebastian takes a deep breath, trying to calm both his worries about Lily and the arousal he feels building from his daydreams about Stefano, and walks to the door.

When he opens it, Stefano is standing there wearing a thick wool coat and scarf over his usual dress clothes. To be fair, the temperature has dropped in the past week, and it’s starting to feel much more like winter, but Sebastian, who is wearing jeans and a T-shirt, isn’t uncomfortable standing in the open doorway. Before he can stop himself, he asks, “Where did you come from, Antarctica?”

Stefano laughs. “I’m always cold,” he says, throwing up his hands, which are also covered by gloves.

“Come in then.” Sebastian smiles and steps back from the door, wondering if the ambient temperature of his house is going to be enough to make Stefano comfortable, but deciding that he can think of a few other ways to warm Stefano up.

Sebastian barely has time to shut the door before Stefano is pressed up against him, arms wrapped around Sebastian’s waist and reaching up to kiss him. He doesn’t have to reach far, Sebastian notes, because with Stefano wearing shoes and Sebastian in his socks only, they’re almost the same height. Then Stefano’s lips are on his, and he forgets about everything but the taste of Stefano’s mouth and Stefano’s tongue teasing his lips and Stefano’s arms pulling him closer.

Much as Sebastian is enjoying Stefano’s attentions, he’s already frustrated by the number of layers of fabric between them, so he grabs Stefano by the shoulders, spins them both one hundred eighty degrees, and shoves Stefano’s back up against the front door. It comes off as way more aggressive than Sebastian intended, and he’s about to apologize, but then he sees Stefano’s face, flushed from more than the cold, his mouth slightly open, and his eye wide and fixed on Sebastian.

Sebastian steps forward, closing the distance between them. He raises his hand to Stefano’s cheek and plants his mouth firmly on Stefano’s, thrusting his tongue into Stefano’s mouth as he presses his thigh between Stefano’s legs. Stefano makes a soft, muffled noise against his mouth and presses his hips forward into Sebastian as his hands come up to clutch at Sebastian’s shoulders. Sebastian just presses back and lets his own hands travel to Stefano’s scarf, pulling it free of his neck and tossing it in the general direction of the couch.

With the scarf out of the way, Sebastian’s hands move to Stefano’s hips. He releases Stefano’s mouth and presses a kiss just under his ear.

“I missed you,” Sebastian whispers. It’s ridiculous because it’s only been two days, and Sebastian is a grown man who supposedly has some impulse control, and he can only admit it when his face is pressed to Stefano’s neck so that he doesn’t have to look him in the eye, but it’s still true.

“I missed you as well,” Stefano murmurs in reply, rubbing up and down Sebastian’s back with his still-frustratingly-gloved hands.

Sebastian trails his tongue along Stefano’s earlobe which makes Stefano squirm a little, but Sebastian holds him steady, so the squirming really just produces some tantalizing friction between Stefano’s now undeniable erection and Sebastian’s leg. Pleased with that result, Sebastian draws Stefano’s earlobe into his mouth, sucking and gently nipping, and Stefano shudders and grinds forward against Sebastian. Stefano’s reactions only get better as Sebastian kisses and bites his way down Stefano’s neck to the collar of his jacket, and by the time Sebastian pulls back to do something about the offending article of clothing, Stefano is all too happy to help get rid of it.

After a brief struggle, because Sebastian refuses to remove his leg from between Stefano’s and Stefano is finding it difficult to get his jacket out from between his body and the door, Stefano is out of his gloves and jacket and both are strewn across Sebastian’s couch. Sebastian half expects to see yet another jacket, but fortunately the next layer is just Stefano’s shirt, which is still an obstacle, but a much more manageable one.

“Bedroom,” gasps Stefano, before Sebastian can start working on his shirt, and Sebastian leans in for one more rough, tongue-filled kiss before he steps back and turns to lead Stefano upstairs. Sebastian does momentarily consider just picking Stefano up and carrying him to the bedroom, but that seems a little dangerous on a narrow stairway with uneven steps, so he lets Stefano follow him up, and they make it to his bedroom with only a small amount of grabbing each other and laughing and crashing into walls.

Sebastian’s room is filled with sunlight, although it’s the kind of weak sunlight of an almost-winter morning. The blinds are open, and because he has a rear-facing bedroom and the house backs up to a park, Sebastian doesn’t have any neighbors to worry about. Stefano’s hand is in his as they enter, and Sebastian, turns, letting himself fall backwards onto the bed and pulling Stefano down on top of him.

Stefano makes a noise of protest and stands up again to kick off his shoes as Sebastian scoots further onto the bed. Then Stefano is climbing back on with him and lying down beside him. They’re both on their sides, faces inches apart, as Sebastian starts to work on the buttons of Stefano’s shirt. Stefano’s hand comes up to touch Sebastian’s face, trailing down his cheek and stroking his beard, scratching lightly at the short hairs.

“Myra hated that,” Sebastian says without thinking, then follows it immediately with, “Fuck, I’m sorry,” because this is obviously the wrong time to mention Myra at all.

“It’s alright,” Stefano says mildly, his hand still on Sebastian’s face. “Why didn’t she like it?”

“She thought I looked unprofessional when I wasn’t clean-shaven,” Sebastian replies, a little smile creeping onto his face as he remembers. “Actually, I think the word she used was ‘homeless.’”

Stefano laughs and Sebastian laughs, and Sebastian doesn’t forget about Myra, because he’s never going to forget about Myra, but he does turn his attention back to Stefano’s buttons and manage to finish undoing them. Stefano sits up to slip the shirt off and throw it on the floor, then lies down to face Sebastian again.

Sebastian is still thinking of things he’d like to do to Stefano, but the urgency has cooled a little bit, and he takes a moment to just look at Stefano, who is gazing serenely back at him. Sebastian is suddenly struck by the urge to see all of Stefano, though he’s unsure what Stefano’s reaction will be. Very slowly, giving Stefano time to react, Sebastian raises his hand, starting to push back the hair that normally covers the right side of Stefano’s face. Stefano does react, grabbing Sebastian’s wrist and halting his movements.

“Don’t,” Stefano says.

“Why not?” asks Sebastian. He doesn’t retract his hand, but he lets it go still in Stefano’s grasp.

“It is… very unpleasant to look at.” Stefano’s voice has suddenly gone very flat and a little cold, and Sebastian is worried that he’s made huge mistake.

“I saw it before in STEM,” Sebastian offers.

“It was different in STEM,” Stefano replies, voice still cold and emotionless. “Everything was. In STEM, it was a fantastic weapon. Here it is…” his voice softens a little and he looks down, away from Sebastian. “It is just an aberration, a despoilment of the perfect symmetry of the human face.”

“I want to see all of you,” Sebastian says. He isn’t surprised that Stefano is sensitive about his face, but after Stefano was willing to share so much of his body with Sebastian the other night, Sebastian wonders whether this point is negotiable. “Will you let me?”

Stefano takes a deep breath. “As you wish,” he says, releasing Sebastian’s hand and crossing his arm over his chest.

Sebastian carefully sweeps Stefano’s hair away, tucking it behind his ear. Stefano closes his good eye and appears to be bracing himself for Sebastian’s reaction. Sebastian is carefully monitoring his own reaction, which turns out to be a good thing, because his immediate impulse is to laugh at what is either Stefano’s exaggeration or his vanity. Maybe it’s his time with the police force or his time in STEM, but Sebastian has seen some gruesome things, and Stefano’s face just doesn’t rate on that list at all.

His eye is missing of course, and in the small gap between his eyelids, Sebastian can see a little of the pink membranes that would normally be behind or around his eye. He does have some relatively heavy scarring from his brow line to the middle of his cheek on that side, but that’s not particularly shocking either. In fact, Sebastian thinks that some of his own scars might rival these and wonders if Stefano noticed them the last time they were together. He realizes that he’s just been staring for a few seconds, so he leans in to press a kiss to Stefano’s forehead. Then he rests his forehead against Stefano’s and cups Stefano’s face in his hands.

“You know this doesn’t change anything, right?” He says quietly.

“I’ve heard that before.” Stefano sighs deeply and moves his hand to rearrange his hair. From out of nowhere, Sebastian feels anger flare up inside him.

Sebastian grabs Stefano’s wrist, rolling Stefano onto his back and pressing his wrist down to the bed beside his head. Sebastian is halfway over him now, staring down at Stefano, whose eye is wide in alarm.

“Don’t say that,” growls Sebastian. “I don’t know who told you that and didn’t mean it. Hell, I don’t know who told you half of the bullshit things you seem to think about yourself!” Sebastian knows that his voice is rising in anger, but he can’t stop it. He is fucking angry. Stefano is wrong about this, wrong about so many things, and Sebastian doesn’t know how to make him see that, so he just goes on. “But you know where you stand with me! You’ve always known where you stood with me, even when I wanted to kill you. Why the hell would I lie to you now?”

Stefano is shrinking back slightly from Sebastian’s outburst, but Sebastian grabs his other wrist, pinning it to the bed as well. It is starting to dawn on Sebastian that it’s not actually Stefano he wants to yell at and that he needs to back off, but he’s angry and he needs to make this point and Stefano is the only one here.

“Do you think I just want to fuck you? That you have to be pleasing to me or I won’t want to see you again? Do you really think I’d do that?”

The look in Stefano’s eye right at that moment says that he doesn’t know what Sebastian’s capable of, and he is actually trembling now, and that finally snaps Sebastian out of it. The anger drains away, to be replaced by a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Sebastian releases Stefano’s wrists and quickly sits back, away from Stefano, who is still frozen in place.

“Oh god,” Sebastian moans, burying his face in his hands. “Oh god, I am so fucking sorry, Stefano. I can’t believe I just… I’m so sorry.” He feels sick inside because of the fear he saw on Stefano’s face, because he can’t control his emotions better, and he knows that if Stefano wants to leave right now, Sebastian really can’t blame him. But then he feels a hand on his thigh, and Stefano is climbing into his lap, sitting sideways and resting his head on Sebastian’s chest. Sebastian leans back against the pillows and the headboard and wraps his arms around Stefano.

“Sorry,” he murmurs again, his lips pressed against Stefano’s hair.

“It’s alright,” Stefano says quietly. “You are correct about many things, but your delivery could be less… intense.”

Sebastian tightens his arms around Stefano and kisses the top of his head.

“I have associated with some men in the past who were not as kind as you,” Stefano continues. “Nothing dramatically terrible,” he reassures Sebastian, who bristles at the confirmation of his suspicions, “but I suppose I’ve grown accustomed to being treated in a certain way, and those habits are hard to break.”

“As long as you know that I would never treat you like that,” Sebastian says quietly, feeling his heart rate slowing down along with Stefano’s.

“You seem to be very different than my past lovers,” Stefano replies.

“I am,” Sebastian says. “Just give me a chance to prove it to you.”

“I am giving you a chance,” Stefano answers. “That’s why we’re here.” He pulls back a little and stretches up to place a slow, chaste kiss on Sebastian’s mouth. Then he climbs out of Sebastian’s lap and lies down on the bed, tugging Sebastian’s arm to urge him to lie down as well. Sebastian lies down facing Stefano again, and this time Stefano doesn’t bother trying to cover his bad eye. Sebastian kisses his forehead and both of his cheeks very gently, because Sebastian isn’t sure how sensitive the scar tissue is. He can feel Stefano smiling under his lips as he does it, and when he pulls back, Stefano is wearing one of the most genuinely happy looks Sebastian has seen from him.

Sebastian isn’t really sure if he, or Stefano for that matter, will be able to get back in the mood to do anything sexual, but he still wants to be close to Stefano, to hold him, and be held by him, so Sebastian throws an arm over Stefano and pulls him closer, just enjoying the feeling of Stefano’s body against his. Stefano’s hand moves to Sebastian’s back, rubbing slow circles.

“I’m sorry I yelled,” Sebastian says quietly. “It just made me so angry that someone would make you feel that way.”

“I know,” Stefano says, his voice muffled against Sebastian’s T-shirt, “but being angry about it really doesn’t do any good. It’s over. Focus on the present.”

Sebastian nods, and runs his hand down Stefano’s back. Stefano shivers a little.

“Are you cold?” Sebastian asks.

“A little,” Stefano answers.

“Want to get under the covers?”

“Yes,” Stefano says. Sebastian loosens his arm on Stefano, who rolls to the edge of the bed and stands up. Sebastian follows him. He pulls back the covers, then turns to Stefano to find that he’s already shed his socks and pants and is slipping out of his briefs. Sebastian raises an eyebrow at him.

“If I didn’t know better, I would say you have ulterior motives,” Sebastian observes.

“Perhaps,” Stefano smiles at him, “but you’re wearing far too many clothes to have an opinion on anything right now.”

Sebastian laughs and begins undressing as Stefano gets back into his bed and pulls the covers around himself. Once Sebastian is completely nude, he slips under the covers as well, and Stefano is pressing himself up against Sebastian, still shivering a little, but it just feels so fucking good to be naked with Stefano again that nothing else seems to matter. They lie there holding each other for a few minutes, Sebastian running his hands all over Stefano in an attempt to warm him and Stefano pressing close to Sebastian, apparently to share his body heat.

It’s easy to tell when Stefano is warm enough, because he throws a leg over Sebastian’s hip and reaches up to kiss Sebastian. It’s slow and gentle and sweet, but exciting, especially because Stefano is beginning to rub up against him in a very enticing way. Sebastian lets the kissing and rubbing go on for a little while, then pulls away and carefully rolls over so that he is on top of Stefano, making sure not to be too forceful this time. Once he’s comfortably situated between Stefano’s legs, he leans down to kiss him again.

His tongue explores Stefano’s mouth as his hands explore Stefano’s body. Remembering what Stefano did to him the other night, he experimentally brushes his thumb over a nipple, which causes Stefano to gasp, so Sebastian focuses there, pinching and tugging lightly as he sees what kinds of interesting noises he can wring from Stefano’s throat. Sebastian slides down Stefano’s body so that he can use his mouth as well, and when he begins to lick and suck and bite, Stefano’s moans get high and breathy and Stefano’s hard cock is pressing into his belly with every desperate, frantic movement of Stefano’s hips.

When Sebastian looks up to Stefano’s face, Stefano is flushed and panting and the most goddamn beautiful thing Sebastian’s ever seen.

“You’re beautiful,” Sebastian says, and when Stefano opens his mouth to argue, Sebastian moves back up and silences him with another kiss. Sebastian’s already half-hard as well just from listening to Stefano’s moans and gasps, so the friction of Stefano’s cock on his is delicious, and he rolls his hips against Stefano’s over and over again. Before long they’re both groaning and clutching at each other, and Sebastian pulls back because, as nice as this is, he has other ideas in mind for today.

Sebastian moves down Stefano’s body taking the covers with him, hoping Stefano won’t complain too much about that, since this is all new to him and he doesn’t think he can pull it off in the dark. He kisses his way down Stefano’s neck to his chest, then to his belly until he reaches his cock. Stefano sits up on his elbows to look at Sebastian with mild confusion, but Sebastian flashes him a smile and places a kiss on his inner thigh. Stefano’s muscles twitch and he lets his head fall back on the pillow as Sebastian kisses and licks his way back up to Stefano’s cock. He takes it in his hands, squeezing gently as Stefano arches up into his touch.

Much as he is enjoying Stefano’s reactions, Sebastian needs him to hold still while he tries to figure out how this works. He takes hold of Stefano’s hip with one hand, pinning him down to the bed, as he slides his other hand down Stefano’s cock, exposing the head. He moves his mouth to Stefano’s cock, wondering if this is really something that he’s going to enjoy, but he remembers how good Stefano made him feel before, and he does love the way Stefano tastes everywhere else, so it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch.

Sebastian gives a few teasing licks that make Stefano gasp before he takes the head of Stefano’s cock fully in his mouth and Stefano moans loudly and digs his fingers into the sheets. It’s not an unpleasant taste at all, but as Sebastian slides his mouth up and down Stefano’s cock, pausing every so often to explore with his tongue, he does find that it requires some coordination. His teeth obviously have to be kept well out of the way, except for one moment where he accidentally scrapes them lightly along Stefano’s length and Stefano groans and swears and tries to arch up against Sebastian’s mouth. His tongue seems to be his primary weapon, whether he’s focusing on specific areas that make Stefano cry out and squirm under him or just using it to exert pressure on Stefano’s cock as he slides his mouth up and down. And Stefano does seem to enjoy it when Sebastian takes him in as deeply as he can.

On one of those strokes, Sebastian manages to take so much of Stefano that his mouth touches his hand, and he pauses like that for a moment, working his tongue against the underside of Stefano’s cock. Stefano groans and rakes his fingers through Sebastian’s hair. Stefano is still breathing hard and trying to thrust up against Sebastian, but Sebastian’s pretty sure that it’s time to step up his game.

Sebastian slides his mouth back up Stefano’s cock, tonguing the slit a few times, so that Stefano’s hands tighten in his hair. Then he pulls off of it completely, kisses Stefano’s hip, and leans over to open the drawer in his bedside table. The new supplies he bought yesterday are right where he left them, and he grabs the bottle of lube and a condom before settling back down between Stefano’s legs.

Stefano is propped up on his elbows again, looking at him with one eyebrow raised. “You seem to be prepared,” he observes.

“I did a little research,” Sebastian replies, trying not to sound too pleased with himself.

“Research?” Stefano asks, the corner of his mouth curving up.

“Well, you can find a lot of interesting stuff on the internet,” Sebastian answers.

Stefano looks almost worried. “Yes, you can,” he says. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“Nothing too fancy.” Sebastian pats Stefano’s thigh reassuringly. “Just… what you suggested last time, if that’s still okay.”

“Ah,” Stefano smiles. “Yes, that would be lovely.”

Sebastian wants to ask Stefano how he can speak so calmly when by all appearances, he’s flushed and hard and must be desperate for Sebastian to do something to him, but instead, he sets the condom on the bed beside Stefano’s hip and starts to open the lube.

“Do you know how to do this?” Stefano asks.

“Well, I did almost two hours of research, so I’m basically an expert now,” Sebastian replies, the sarcasm heavy in his voice. Stefano flops back onto the pillow and claps a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh. Sebastian continues, “But since you’re offering, what do you recommend?”

Stefano sits back up on his elbows, and his expression is much more serious, though it still has a hint of warmth to it. “Go slowly. Start with your fingers.” Sebastian nods. Stefano glances down to the sheets then back at Sebastian and adds in a much softer voice. “Also, it’s been a while for me, so be a little careful.”

Stefano looks down again as he finishes the sentence, seemingly embarrassed by this brief moment of vulnerability, but Sebastian is already moving back up Stefano’s body, temporarily abandoning the bottle of lube. He leans down over Stefano, supporting most of his weight on his forearms, and presses his lips to Stefano’s forehead, then to his mouth.

“Of course I will,” Sebastian whispers and kisses Stefano again. “You’ll tell me if I hurt you?”

“You won’t,” Stefano replies, taking Sebastian’s face in his hands and drawing Sebastian’s tongue into his mouth. The kiss starts out slow and sweet, but builds in intensity as Stefano begins to arch his body upward into Sebastian’s. Sebastian finally pulls away, moving back down between Stefano’s legs and opening the bottle of lube.

“Here,” Stefano says, grabbing a pillow from beside him and lifting his hips to set the pillow under him. Sebastian helps him position it, then begins applying lube to his fingers. He glances up to see Stefano, head resting on the pillow behind him, hips elevated and legs spread wide, open and waiting for him, and even though no one’s even touched him yet, his arousal spikes and he feels like he’s harder than he’s ever been in his life.

Sebastian places one hand on Stefano’s hip and lets his lubricated finger trace the area behind Stefano’s balls, moving slowly to tease the outside of his opening. He doesn’t exert any pressure at first, just makes slow, teasing circles, getting everything nice and slick and watching Stefano’s chest rise and fall sharply and his legs twitch as Sebastian touches him in what he can only imagine is a very sensitive area.

When he can tell that Stefano’s muscles are beginning to relax and Stefano is pressing down against his finger, Sebastian adjusts his angle and allows just the tip of his finger to slip inside. He pauses to gauge Stefano’s reaction, but Stefano only hums in contentment and tries to sink his hips down onto Sebastian’s finger, so Sebastian presses forward a little further. He pauses again to marvel at how hot and slick and how fucking tight Stefano is on the inside. Based on how Stefano’s body is gripping his finger, he can’t imagine what it will feel like around his cock, or if it’s even possible for his cock to fit here. Then Stefano breathes out slowly, and his body relaxes a little more. Sebastian presses forward again, and this time his finger slides in easily to the third knuckle.

Carefully watching Stefano’s face, Sebastian begins to move his finger around, sliding it slowly in and out until all he can think about is fucking Stefano and Stefano is moaning and gripping the sheets in time with his movements. Sebastian moves his finger almost all the way out of Stefano’s body, then begins to tease his opening with a second finger.

Stefano groans out, “Please, Sebastian,” and Sebastian takes that as his cue to ease his second finger inside. Stefano feels even tighter around Sebastian’s two fingers, and Sebastian pauses for a moment, squeezing his hip reassuringly, to make sure that Stefano is comfortable. Before long though, Stefano begins to move his hips, trying to press further onto Sebastian’s fingers. His eye is closed, but his expression is absolutely serene, and Sebastian feels confident enough to slide his fingers in all the way. He curls them slightly, exploring, looking for that special spot that he learned about during his research. He knows when he’s found it, because Stefano yelps loudly and jerks his hips up off the pillow, and practically shouts, “There! Yes, Sebastian, right there!”

Sebastian obliges, drawing his fingers across that spot over and over again, varying the pressure and the angle and the speed until Stefano is basically incoherent, just stringing syllables together between moans and curses. Sebastian is completely enthralled with Stefano, with the feel of his body, gripping Sebastian’s fingers so tightly, with the sounds he makes and the way he writhes under Sebastian’s hands, and with the effect that all of these things have on his own body. Sebastian never imagined that he could become so urgently, achingly hard just from watching someone else’s pleasure. He’s determined to do this slowly and gently for Stefano, but he also wants Stefano in a raw, carnal way that scares him a little bit.

Sebastian is taking a few deep breaths and trying to get himself under control when Stefano pulls his knees up to his chest and gasps, “More, Sebastian. I need more.” Stefano looks utterly wanton now, head thrown back, arms wrapped around his legs, cock still hard and dripping pre-cum onto his belly, and Sebastian certainly isn’t going to deny him anything when he looks like that, so he eases his fingers out and presses back in with three.

The noise Stefano makes this time is more of a hiss, and Sebastian can feel, can see how stretched open Stefano’s body is around his fingers, so he stills his hand. Sebastian’s other hand is now rubbing the back of Stefano’s leg, and he waits until Stefano has taken a few deep breaths and he can feel some of the tension leaving his body before he begins to slide his fingers in further. Stefano stays still this time, breathing hard as Sebastian carefully moves his fingers in and out, trying hard not to imagine his cock inside Stefano, because he’s already so fucking close and he doesn’t want to embarrass himself by coming before they even get started. After a few minutes of Sebastian slowly working Stefano’s body open with his three fingers, Stefano says, “I’m ready, Sebastian.”

Sebastian is more than ready himself, so he lets his fingers slip out and reaches for the condom. As it turns out, it is surprisingly hard to open the foil packet with one hand slick with lube, so Stefano helps him. Sebastian rolls on the condom, trying to touch his over-sensitized cock as little as possible, slicks himself up with more lube, wipes his fingers on the sheets (which earns him yet another raised eyebrow from Stefano), and moves into position. Stefano lets his legs fall open again and wraps them loosely around Sebastian’s waist. He looks much calmer than Sebastian feels as Sebastian takes his own cock in hand and lines himself up.

Sebastian moves slowly at first, his cock just nudging against Stefano’s opening, pressing a little more firmly each time until he eases the head inside. Stefano is practically clawing at the sheets by this point, and Sebastian feels like he’d be doing the same if he wasn’t too afraid to move at all. The intense pressure and heat of Stefano’s body is almost too much and the way Stefano moans Sebastian’s name isn’t helping either. Sebastian has to pause for his own sake, because Stefano is just so fucking tight and it’s unlike anything he’s ever experienced before.

Sebastian is watching Stefano’s face carefully and he seems to be relaxed, but his eye is closed, which means Sebastian can’t read him as well as he wants to. Sebastian slowly presses forward a little further, and Stefano groans and releases the sheets to grab Sebastian’s shoulders.

“Okay?” Sebastian asks.

“Yes,” Stefano gasps out, voice shaking. “Better than okay. Don’t stop.”

Encouraged, Sebastian continues to press inside, taking some deep breaths to steady himself. After what seems like ages, he’s fully sheathed inside Stefano. Sebastian leans forward, letting his forearms support his weight, as he moves his left hand to cradle Stefano’s head. Stefano opens his eye then and holds Sebastian’s gaze, and Sebastian has never found simple eye contact to be this intoxicating, and he’s on the verge of blurting out something really, really stupid that he can’t possibly be feeling again after all this time, and for Stefano of all people.

Stefano reaches for Sebastian’s right hand and interlaces their fingers, then reaches up to brush his lips against Sebastian’s. Sebastian reciprocates with a firmer kiss, trying to focus on his lips moving against Stefano’s instead of the ridiculous words in his head and the tight, hot grip that Stefano’s body has on his cock. As he presses Stefano back against the pillows with his rough, seeking kisses, Sebastian begins to rock his hips, moving both of their bodies together. He’s barely moving at all, but it still feels amazing to Sebastian. He finally breaks the kiss for air.

“You can move more than that, you know,” Stefano says, his breath hitching each time Sebastian moves. Sebastian, who has grown a little more accustomed to Stefano’s body, has finally reached the point where he feels like he might actually be able to control himself. He moves his left hand to get a better leverage point on the mattress, right hand still holding Stefano’s, and slides out just a few inches before pressing back in. They moan in unison, and Stefano’s hand squeezes his. The act of sliding himself in and out magnifies all of the sensations Sebastian has been feeling since they started, and he gives a few more experimental thrusts, squeezing Stefano’s hand and groaning curses and trying to stop his legs from shaking with the intensity of the experience.

“More, please,” Stefano gasps, and Sebastian pulls almost completely out before thrusting back in to the hilt.

“Yes,” Stefano moans, thrashing his head from side to side on the pillow. “Faster.” Encouraged by Stefano’s obvious enjoyment, Sebastian begins fucking him in earnest, his movements smoother, thrusts harder, his own grunts of pleasure escaping each time he drives back into Stefano’s body. Stefano’s legs tighten around Sebastian’s back, pulling him forward on each thrust. Sebastian’s amazed, both by how much Stefano’s body can take and by how warm and open and receptive Stefano is.

Stefano seems to no longer be concerned about the state of his hair or whether his face is covered. He moves with Sebastian, cries out in time with Sebastian’s thrusts, clenches rhythmically around Sebastian almost as though they’re extensions of each other. Sebastian feels suddenly humbled to be so perfectly in tune with his old enemy, to be so completely trusted by the man he once killed, and his heart swells because now, Stefano is safe and alive, and he’s moaning and writhing and incoherent with lust because of Sebastian. And if Sebastian has anything to say about it, no one is ever going to hurt him again.

Even as Sebastian’s mind races, he’s thrusting steadily into Stefano. He can feel the familiar tension between his legs coming back now in full force, despite his earlier attempts to calm himself down. He’d like to watch Stefano in the throes of pleasure for hours, but Sebastian knows he doesn’t have that long. The overwhelming tightness and heat of Stefano’s body are driving him closer and closer to the edge, and he can already feel the pressure of his orgasm building. He’s determined to please Stefano as well, so he shifts his body, adjusts the angle of his thrusts until Stefano practically screams, “There! Harder, Sebastian!”

So Sebastian makes it his mission to hit that spot on every single thrust. His left hand has shifted to Stefano’s hip, and he’s slamming into him now, driving his hips so hard, feeling Stefano’s body squeezing him so tightly that he’s starting to get a little lightheaded. Stefano seems completely enthralled, whining every time Sebastian’s cock hits his prostate and trying to pull Sebastian against him even harder.

Sebastian releases Stefano’s hand and takes hold of Stefano’s cock, squeezing and stroking in time with his thrusts. Stefano’s crying out on every thrust now, and within just a few more he’s moaning Sebastian’s name and coming all over his chest, and Sebastian is doing his best to keep thrusting and stroking through it, but the way Stefano’s body clenches around him is fucking maddening, and he needs Stefano so badly right in that moment. He gives three more hard, uneven thrusts, and comes himself in a viciously intense burst of pleasure, shouting Stefano’s name and collapsing onto the other man’s chest.

Sebastian isn’t sure how many minutes he lies there, trying to catch his breath, but he is concerned about crushing Stefano, so he lifts up a little, getting his arms under him to hold some of his weight. Before he can pull away too much, Stefano’s arms are wrapped around him, pulling him down, and he finds himself pressed up against Stefano again. Based on the wet, sticky feeling on his chest, they’re probably making a terrible mess, but Sebastian can’t bring himself to care.

“That was incredible,” he murmurs into Stefano’s neck.

“Yes,” Stefano purrs as his hands move soothingly up and down Sebastian’s back. “You’re a very fast learner.”

Sebastian smiles against Stefano’s neck. “I can do even better though, if you’ll give me another chance in… I don’t know… three or four hours.” The exhaustion is starting to hit him now, and he’s still inside Stefano, feeling so warm and content that he’s pretty sure he could fall asleep like this no problem.

Stefano laughs, “If you do any better than that, I might not survive.” Stefano’s hand has made its way to the back of Sebastian’s head and is gently scratching under his hair, which feels fucking fantastic, and Sebastian’s just starting to drift off when Stefano taps him on the shoulder.

“Don’t fall asleep,” Stefano says. “Unless you want to be glued to me.”

Sebastian laughs then, but he sits up and kisses Stefano on the mouth, long and slow, then eases back until his cock slips out of Stefano’s body.

“Hold on,” Sebastian says, “I’ll get a washcloth.” He put the lube away in the bedside table, then carefully removes the condom and walks unsteadily the bathroom where he tosses it in the trash can. He wets two washcloths with warm water and returns to the bedroom. He’s pleased to see that Stefano seems to be relaxed and lounging contentedly on his sheets this time, rather than trying to make himself disappear or whatever that was that happened the last time they did this. He hands a washcloth to Stefano.

Once they’ve both cleaned up a little bit, Stefano beckons Sebastian back into bed, where he is all too happy to pull Stefano up against him and throw the covers over them both. He glances at the clock on the nightstand. It’s 1:15, which means they still have time for a little nap and for Stefano to leave before Lily’s bus arrives. Sebastian rarely rests for more than a few minutes at a time, so he’s unconcerned when the lazy kisses and caresses and soft words of reassurance give way to sleep.

 

Sebastian is with Myra in a field of sunflowers. He knows Myra’s dead, so he knows that he must be dreaming, but he still reaches out to her. She smiles and blows him a kiss, before turning to walk away. He watches her go, the scene very calm and beautiful until Lily’s scream splits the air. He turns quickly. He has to reach Lily, has to save Lily, but then he’s sitting halfway up in his own bed.

Lily is really there, and she is really screaming. Sebastian tracks her gaze to Stefano, who is slowly stirring, head propped on Sebastian’s chest and one arm thrown possessively over Sebastian, and thank god they’re both otherwise covered by the blankets. Sebastian doesn’t have time to react, doesn’t have time to explain, before Lily turns and bolts from the room.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Sebastian comes back downstairs, he turns off the TV and sits down on the couch, still close to Stefano but far enough away that he thinks they’ll be able to have a conversation that doesn’t turn into them just touching each other. Before he can begin, Stefano speaks.
> 
> “You asked me earlier to give you a chance, which I did, and I am.” Sebastian nods, and Stefano continues, “What is stopping you from giving me one?”
> 
> [Lily's discovery of Sebastian and Stefano forces Sebastian to come to terms with his own feelings and make a difficult decision.]

Sebastian is still sitting frozen in his bed, mouth open in shock, when Lily’s bedroom door slams, bringing him sharply back to his senses.

“Shit!” Sebastian shouts, launching himself out of bed, nearly elbowing Stefano in the face. “Sorry, sorry,” he says quickly. His legs are tangled up in the covers, and he almost falls face-first off the side of the bed, but catches himself with one hand on the way to the ground. He struggles out of the covers, stands up, and starts frantically grabbing on the floor of the bedroom for his clothes. He can’t believe he overslept, can’t believe he invited Stefano over in the first place, can’t believe how fucking stupid this whole idea was.

As he pulls on his boxers, he glances at Stefano to see that he is now fully awake and looks suitably alarmed. His first instinct is to order him to leave, but no, the problem isn’t Stefano. The problem is Sebastian and how he’s been lying to Lily and fraternizing with their enemy and how thoroughly he’s fucked this up.

“Stay right there,” Sebastian cautions Stefano as he steps into his jeans and pulls them up. As he fastens them, his eyes frantically dart around the room trying to locate his T-shirt. He’s standing on it.

“Fuck!” He grabs the shirt. “I mean, put some clothes on,” he tries again as he turns the shirt right-side-out and pulls it over his head. Stefano doesn’t speak, but does lean over the edge of the bed and start retrieving his own clothes from the floor.

“I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere,” Sebastian says finally as he dashes out of the bedroom.

He reaches Lily’s door in about three steps, but during those steps, he’s reviewed a few very important pieces of information. First, he doesn’t have to explain sex to Lily. He knows this because he and Lily had a very uncomfortable conversation about it shortly after they left Krimson City. He had always hoped that Myra would be the one to fill Lily in on all of that “birds and the bees” stuff, but since they no longer had that option, he’d done his best and managed to thoroughly embarrass both of them.

Second, he’s pretty sure that he doesn’t have to explain that men can be romantic with other men. They haven’t discussed this in great detail, but one of the kids on Lily’s soccer team has two dads, and when Lily asked him about it, he said something to the effect of “people love who they love” and Lily seemed to take it in stride.

Which means that he should be able to skip right to the part where he brought home a man who is, as far as Lily knows, their enemy, a man who kidnapped her, used her fear as inspiration for his art, and made a good effort at killing Sebastian as well. So that’s something. He makes an effort to lower his voice and speak calmly, even though all of these thoughts are swarming around inside his head like angry bees.

“Lily,” he calls through the door, tapping on it lightly.

“What the hell, Dad?!” Lily shouts back at the top of her lungs.

“Language!” Sebastian says sharply before realizing that this probably isn’t the time. “I’m coming in,” he says more gently, turning the knob and opening the door.

Lily is on the other side of her room, the bed between her and Sebastian. Her eyes are wild, her dark hair is fanned out around her face, and she’s actually quivering with adrenaline. Sebastian has only seen her like this once or twice before, after a very intense nightmare, and his first instinct is to rush to her and wrap her in his arms.

“Sweetie,” Sebastian begins, taking a step toward her. Lily jumps back, almost at the wall now, and Sebastian stops and raises his hands in surrender. It feels like being punched in the chest to see Lily afraid of him like that. “Sorry,” he says, for what has got to be the fifteenth time today. They stare at each other for a full three seconds, neither one moving a muscle, before Sebastian drops to one knee, hands still raised.

“Lily, I need you to listen to me,” Sebastian tries again, but Lily cuts him off.

“I knew you were dating somebody!” she snaps at him, eyes brimming with tears now. “I’m not stupid! But why… why him?” She wipes her eyes on the sleeves of her turquoise hoodie and looks at him with an expression of total disbelief. Sebastian fleetingly wonders if this is one of those situations where he can get away with “because I said so,” but dismisses that thought immediately. Not only does Lily deserve an explanation, but the only chance of keeping Stefano in his life is to convince Lily that it’s a good idea. And then to remind himself of why it’s a good idea, because right now he’s starting to doubt that.

“It’s kind of a long story,” Sebastian says with a sigh, turning around so that he’s sitting on the floor with his back against Lily’s bed. For one thing, he wants to be less confrontational, and for another, he’s not sure he can look Lily in the eye while he tries to explain himself.

“It had better be a good one,” Lily huffs, sitting down on the other side of the bed. Normally there would be consequences for speaking to him in that tone, but the conversation they’re about to have isn’t part of your average parent-child relationship, and he’s willing to make a few allowances to try to keep things going smoothly.

“You remember how we were… with Mobius? How they put us into STEM?”

“Yes,” Lily answers, and even though he’s facing the other way, Sebastian can picture the exasperated look on her face.

“Well, Mobius also put Mr. Valentini into STEM. Mr. Valentini is-” Sebastian starts to point back toward his bedroom.

“I know who Mr. Valentini is,” snaps Lily. “He told me about one thousand times!”

“Oh,” Sebastian says, realizing for the first time that Lily actually spent a significant amount of time alone with Stefano in STEM, and that they’ve probably had interactions he doesn’t even know about. The thought is troubling, and he files it away for further reflection, but he genuinely believes that the Stefano who is currently in his bedroom is not a threat to Lily, so he continues.

“What else do you remember about being in STEM with Mr. Valentini?”

“I remember running from him and hiding,” Lily answers flatly. “I hid in the warehouse, but he found me, and then we were in some weird kind of house or more like a museum.” She pauses to draw in a deep breath, then starts speaking in a rush. “He kept showing me his artwork, and it was weird and gross, and I didn’t like it, and I was scared, and there were monsters, and we kept moving around all over the place.” Lily sniffles, but her voice is starting to sound stronger now. “And then I was in the theatre and Mom was there.”

Sebastian latches onto this conversational topic as something that might actually help him make his point.

“And do you remember what Mom was like in STEM?” Sebastian asks.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Lily sounds more irritated now than afraid.

“Just, please Lily.” Sebastian’s voice softens even more, and he lets his head fall back against the bed. “What do you remember about Mom in STEM?”

The bed shifts, and Sebastian turns his head slightly to see that Lily’s now sitting cross-legged with her elbows resting on her knees. When she speaks, her voice is soft and shaking a little.

“She was… different. She had powers, and she had monsters too, and she said… she said she was going to keep me safe.” Lily buries her face in her hands, so that the rest of her words come out muffled. “It was like… she was Mom, but she wasn’t Mom.”

Lily sniffles again, and Sebastian leans over to grab a tissue from the box on her nightstand, then reaches his arm behind him to hand it to her. She takes it and blows her nose. Sebastian carefully considers his next move, hoping that Lily has enough memories of Myra from before STEM for this to work.

“Lily, do you remember what Mom was like before STEM? When we all lived together?” Sebastian asks gently.

“Some of it,” Lily answers, “but Mom wasn’t the same in STEM. And not just the powers and the monsters… she was acting different.”

“That’s because STEM changes people,” Sebastian explains. “Especially if you’re in it for a long time, like Mom was, or Mr. Valentini.”

“Did it change me?” Lily asks.

“No, not you, sweetie. That’s why you were so special,” Sebastian answers. “But other people, like Mom, did things inside STEM that they wouldn’t do in real life.”

“Like Mom,” Lily repeats. “And STEM changed Mr. Valentini?”

“Yes, it did,” Sebastian answers, feeling a little relieved that Lily is catching on so fast, but unfortunately she’s already on to the next big question.

“I thought you said you killed Mr. Valentini,” Lily says, her tone a little accusatory.

“I did,” Sebastian answers. “I killed him in STEM, but he’s alive here in the real world.” He hesitates, because he hates to admit uncertainty to Lily, but he’s done lying to her. “I’m not actually sure how that works,” he says finally.

“Is he mad that you killed him?” Lily asks, sounding curious now.

“No,” Sebastian smiles and shakes his head. “I don’t think he’s mad anymore. We both did some things in STEM that we’re not happy about.”

“Did he want to go into STEM?” Lily asks.

“No,” Sebastian answers. “No one wanted to go into STEM except Mom and me when we went in to find you.”

“I didn’t want to go in either,” Lily says, almost to herself.

The bed shifts again, and out of the corner of his eye, Sebastian can see that Lily’s lying down on her stomach across the width of the bed now, her head a foot away from his.

“Have you been talking to Mr. Valentini ever since we got out of STEM?” Lily asks.

“No,” Sebastian answers, “just for the last couple of weeks.”

“Oh,” Lily says, then after a pause, “Oh! That explains some things.”

“Like what?” Sebastian turns his head to look at her. She’s smiling shyly at him.

“Nothing,” she says quickly, covering her mouth with her hand. Sebastian isn’t surprised that Lily noticed something was up since he began talking to Stefano, because she is a really sharp kid, but he thought he was doing a better job covering his tracks than this.

“When did you meet him again?” Lily asks from behind her hand.

“That day we went on the field trip to the art museum,” Sebastian answers.

Lily lets her hand drop to the bed and rolls her eyes. “I should have known,” she says. “When he wasn’t talking about himself, he was talking about art.”

Sebastian nods. “Some things don’t change whether you’re in STEM or not.”

“Are you still mad at him for what happened in STEM?” Lily asks, fixing Sebastian with a shrewd look. That’s a tougher question to answer, and Sebastian has to think about it for a few seconds.

“I’m still mad about what happened in STEM, but I’m not mad at Mr. Valentini,” he answers carefully. “I’m mad at Mobius. They did this to you and me and Mom and Mr. Valentini, and everyone else.” It’s the truth, or at least, the best way he can explain it to a twelve-year-old.

“They’re not coming back, are they?” Lily asks, her voice rising in pitch a little.

“No,” Sebastian reassures her. “They’re not coming back. Mom took care of them.”

Lily smiles. Sebastian knows how much she loves to hear about how Myra took down Mobius, whenever Sebastian is feeling brave enough to talk about it.

“Are you going to keep dating Mr. Valentini?” Lily asks, and this one catches Sebastian a little off guard, because that’s exactly what he’s been trying to figure out. And since honesty is his new policy, he explains as best he can.

“I don’t know, sweetie. I don’t know if it’s going to work,” Sebastian says, then follows it up with, “I’m sorry that I surprised you like that. That must have been really scary.”

“Yeah, at first,” Lily replies, but immediately changes topics. “Why wouldn’t it work for you to keep dating him?”

“Just… lots of things,” Sebastian says, unsure of how to explain the complexities of the situation to a child. “Things are really complicated because of what happened in STEM.”

“But if he’s not mad at you, and you’re not mad at him, and you like each other…” Lily’s voice trails off, but she gives him a very pointed look that says he’s missing the obvious answer to this problem.

“There’s just…. There’s more to it than that,” Sebastian says with a deep sigh. Lily shifts over until she’s right behind him, resting her head next to his, and wraps her arms around his neck. He puts his hands on her arms and squeezes them for a moment, until her next question shocks the hell out of him.

“Can I talk to Mr. Valentini?”

“What?” he says, much louder than he intended to. He tries to turn around and look at Lily to see if she’s joking or if she’s lost her mind, but she hangs onto him with a surprisingly strong grip and laughs, presumably at his reaction.

“Please? I want to,” Lily says earnestly, releasing Sebastian’s neck. He turns around and eyes her suspiciously.

Sebastian has no idea what Lily wants to say to Stefano. He knows Stefano won’t hurt Lily, and although Lily is a little unpredictable, she is a twelve-year-old girl, so Stefano can probably defend himself if necessary. And they’re going to have to talk at some point. Might as well be now.

“Okay,” Sebastian says. He leans in and kisses her forehead as she wrinkles up her face in mock-disgust. “Wait here.”

Sebastian stands and crosses the hall to his bedroom, pulling Lily’s door closed behind him as he leaves. Stefano is seated on the bed, fully dressed, hair back in place, and looking immaculate, right down to his shoes. Somehow Sebastian isn’t surprised by that at all.

Stefano looks up when Sebastian enters the room with a slightly wary expression, as though he’s wondering if Sebastian might be re-thinking his decision not to kill him again.

“How did it go?” Stefano asks tentatively.

“Not bad, I think,” Sebastian shrugs. He’s beginning to realize that the real problem here is not going to be Lily’s reaction, but the decisions Sebastian has to make now that Lily knows. “She wants to talk to you.”

“To me?” Stefano looks surprised. “Should I speak to her?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian replies. “I think you should. Just be careful. There’s not much that gets by her.”

“Like her father,” Stefano says with a warm smile as he stands up and embraces Sebastian. This one feels like it’s for moral support, so Sebastian gives him a firm squeeze, then leads him across the hallway to Lily’s room. He takes a deep breath and opens the door.

Lily is sitting cross-legged on the bed again, eyes on Stefano, who stands awkwardly in the doorway until he spots Lily’s desk chair. Stefano and Lily don’t take their eyes off each other as Stefano crosses the room to sit down in the chair. Finally, Lily tears her eyes away and looks at Sebastian.

“Dad, can we have a minute alone?”

This is not what Sebastian had in mind at all. When he told himself earlier that he was comfortable with Stefano and Lily being in the same room, he didn’t mean unattended. But he also knows that he’s probably underestimating both of them, and that if this new potential arrangement has any chance of working, he’s going to have to leave them alone at some point. So he steps back and closes the door, though he does stand directly outside of it with his ear pressed to the crack, because Lily is his daughter and he’s also more attached to Stefano than he’d like to admit and there is a limit to what his nerves can take.

Stefano speaks first. “Hello, Lily.”

Lily’s voice is soft, unsure. “Hello, Mr. Valentini.”

There’s a long pause, then Stefano speaks again.

“Was there something you wanted to ask me?”

“Yes,” Lily says, voice still quiet. “You’re not going to hurt my Dad, are you?” This is not the question Sebastian was expecting, but somehow it’s just like Lily to look out for him first.

“No, Lily, certainly not,” Stefano answers, and Sebastian is surprised to note that Stefano does in fact have a “talking to children” voice. It’s warmer and gentler than his usual tone without being too condescending, and Sebastian wonders when Stefano has had access to children to develop it. Maybe at the museum.

“Things are very different now from how they were in STEM,” Stefano continues. “You do know about STEM, yes?”

“Of course I know about STEM,” Lily says. “I’ve known about STEM for years.” She’s sound more like herself now, and Sebastian almost laughs because she’s twelve and filled with the unwarranted confidence of the young, and he isn’t sure if Stefano knows how to deal with that.

“Well, you are much better informed than I,” Stefano answers. “I just found out about it a few weeks ago.”

“From Dad?” Lily asks.

“Yes, your father told me about it after the day we met at the museum.”

“Did he tell you about my Mom?” Lily’s voice is a little shaky now, and Sebastian wonders why on earth she’s asking about Myra.

“Yes, a little bit.” Stefano pauses. “It sounds like your mother was very brave.”

“That’s why I need to know if you’re going to hurt my Dad,” Lily says. “He’s sad a lot, because of Mom and maybe other stuff. He thinks I don’t know.”

Lily’s not entirely correct about that. Sebastian knows that Lily is aware of some of his moods and episodes and nightmares, but he tries to keep it from affecting her life any more than necessary. After all, she’s twelve, and she has her own traumatic past to deal with. However, her current concern seems to be whether Stefano is going to break Sebastian’s heart, which Sebastian finds both endearing and a little nosey.

“Lily, your father has seen things that most people don’t see even in their darkest nightmares. You know that because you have seen them too,” Stefano says. “And he lost someone that he loved very much. It can take someone a long time to start to feel better after something like that.”

Sebastian’s chest tightens a little bit, because, like Lily, he often wonders when exactly he’s supposed to start feeling better. He doesn’t know if his is a wound that can be healed simply by the passage of time.

“I think he is though,” Lily says, the confidence back in her voice. “I think he smiles more now. I mean, since he started talking to you.”

“Oh,” Stefano says, sounding genuinely surprised. “Does he really?”

“Yes,” Lily says brightly. “And the other night, I heard him laughing.”

“Yes, we were both laughing quite a lot that night,” Stefano answers. There’s a pause in the conversation. Sebastian does a quick inventory of the last few weeks and realizes that Lily’s probably right. He does feel like he’s been doing more smiling and certainly more laughing than he has in a long time.

“That’s why you can’t stop visiting my Dad, okay?” Lily says in a rush. “He’s going to get all weird about this- because I saw you guys, and… just because that’s what he does. Don’t let him do anything stupid.”

Sebastian is both surprised by Lily’s dedication to his and Stefano’s relationship and slightly offended that she felt she had to make her plea to Stefano instead of him. Though he supposes she did try to make it to him and he sort of blew her off. Also, she’s twelve and his love life is really none of her business. And why did he just call it his love life? More accurately, it’s his sex life, which is also none of Lily’s business.

“Lily, I give you my word that I do not want to hurt your father, but that decision is really up to him,” Stefano says.

“We can probably just ask him,” Lily says. “I bet you twenty bucks he’s outside the door listening to everything we’re saying.” Once again, Lily is one step ahead of him, which is why Sebastian is terrified about what the next six years will bring, and probably several more years after that.

“I think it would be unwise for me to take that bet,” Stefano answers warmly.

Lily doesn’t raise her voice at all, but says, “You can come in now, Dad.”

Sebastian decides that there’s no point in pretending he wasn’t listening, so he opens the door and steps into the room. He looks from Lily’s mischievous smile to Stefano’s bemused one and shakes his head, because it suddenly dawns on him that if these two are going to actually team up and work together on anything, Sebastian is going to be in a lot of trouble.

“Everything okay?” Sebastian asks.

“Yes,” Lily replies, then quickly asks. “Are you going to keep dating Mr. Valentini?”

Sebastian shoots a glance at Stefano. He’s blushing, at least on the cheek that Sebastian can see, and otherwise resembles a deer in headlights.

“That’s something that Mr. Valentini and I need to talk about,” Sebastian answers, in an attempt to spare both Stefano and himself from further embarrassment.

“Then can he stay for dinner?” Lily shoots back, shifting into what Sebastian thinks of as her “negotiation mode.”

Sebastian’s mind works frantically to figure out what they were even going to have for dinner before this entire mess blew up in his face. He can’t remember anything that’s in their fridge at the moment, but he also can’t think of a reason not to invite Stefano to stay. He turns to Stefano again.

“Would you like to stay for dinner?”

“Yes, if I’m not imposing,” Stefano replies, recovering himself. “Can I help you get anything ready?”

“Sure,” Sebastian answers. “Lily,” he begins, but she cuts him off.

“I know, I know, homework,” She says loudly with a dramatic toss of her head before jumping off the bed and grabbing her book bag from the floor. Stefano stands up and follows Sebastian out into the hall.

“See what I mean?” Sebastian says. “She’s a sharp kid.”

“Indeed,” Stefano answers. “Those were not the questions I was expecting.”

“Me either,” Sebastian says, leading the way down the stairs. “Lily is full of surprises.”

Unfortunately, today at least, Lily is also full of observations that make Sebastian question his own decisions, his parenting skills, and his motives for seeking out contact with Stefano. She hasn’t thought all of this through, and she shouldn’t, but Sebastian has to.

When they reach the kitchen, Sebastian does a quick inventory of the fridge, freezer, and cupboards while Stefano stands in the doorway. Sebastian finds chicken, rice, and a bag of frozen vegetables, from which he concludes that he’s probably supposed to be making some kind of stir fry for dinner. As he stages all of these things on the counter along with oil and seasonings, Stefano is suddenly at his elbow.

“I didn’t know you could cook,” Stefano observes, with only a hint of amusement in his voice.

“Yeah, that’s basically the only reason Lily and I haven’t starved,” Sebastian answers. “Plus, Myra and I had such crazy schedules that whoever was home at dinner time ended up cooking.” And god damn it, for the second time today, he’s telling Stefano about Myra.

“Sorry,” Sebastian says, stepping back from the counter and looking at the ceiling. Stefano steps in front of him, arms crossed.

“You know that you don’t have to stop talking about Myra, yes?” Stefano asks.

“I think it’s pretty bad form to-” Sebastian starts to reply, but Stefano cuts him off with a wave of his hand.

“You were married to Myra for… how long?”

“Twelve years,” Sebastian answers. He can already feel his throat starting to get tight. He draws in another breath with some effort.

“And you have a child with Myra?” Stefano’s tone is gentle, almost like when he was talking to Lily, but Sebastian can tell that Stefano is not pulling any punches with this line of questioning.

“Yes,” Sebastian says. He clears his throat to try to drive out the constricted, locked-down feeling, but it’s already spreading to his chest.

“And you love Myra?” Stefano asks.

Sebastian has to blink several times before answering, because now his shoulders are heaving with each breath and tears are stinging his eyes. “Yes… No. I mean, can you love someone who’s…?” He looks to Stefano for an answer.

“Can you?” Stefano asks with a gentle inclination of his head, and that’s it. Sebastian is actually crying and lunging for Stefano to bury his face in Stefano’s neck and shoulder, because the only coherent thought he has is that he needs to be quiet so that Lily doesn’t hear him. The others are all jumbled up in his head, fear and pain, grief and rage, love and guilt, and he’s feeling them all, fighting them all, and pouring them all out into Stefano, through his arms wrapped around Stefano’s shoulders, through his tears soaking the collar of Stefano’s shirt, through the deep, heaving sobs that he’s doing his best to muffle by pressing his face against Stefano’s neck.

Stefano’s arms are around him, and he’s rubbing Sebastian’s back somewhat awkwardly because Sebastian is basically pinning Stefano’s arms to his sides.

“It’s not just that she’s gone,” Sebastian says in a rush. He gasps for breath, and continues, “She was gone before, but this is different. This is final.” He gulps, forging ahead. “And all of the stupid little things that she used to do. Seeing her in the kitchen, making dinner, or when she’d tell me I needed to shave or walking Lily out to the school bus.” He pauses, trying to catch his breath, sobbing into Stefano’s neck as Stefano silently holds him.

“There were a million things like that, and it’s… it’s knowing that none of those will ever happen again.” Sebastian takes a few more deep breaths and steps back a little, so that he’s looking Stefano in the eye, hands still on Stefano’s shoulders.

“Yes,” Sebastian says. “Yes, I love Myra. I don’t know how to stop loving Myra.” He releases Stefano’s shoulders, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes and wiping the tears away. He starts to drop his gaze down to the floor, but Stefano’s hand is on his cheek, thumb gently tracing a line under his eye.

“You don’t have to stop loving Myra,” Stefano says soothingly. “She’s part of you now. That is not likely to change in the future.”

“Part of me does though. Part of me wants to stop loving her. Part of me wants to forget her because it just hurts too goddamn much to remember,” Sebastian gasps, and Stefano’s arms are around him again, and he’s clinging to Stefano like the waves of grief and the hard, racking sobs might actually wash him away.

“I am sorry that you’re hurting,” Stefano whispers in his ear, and Sebastian just holds on because he couldn’t speak now even if he knew what to say. After a few minutes, the sobs have faded, his breathing has slowed, and he steps back from Stefano again, wiping at his eyes.

“So you see why we can’t do this?” Sebastian gestures to Stefano, then to himself.

“No,” Stefano shakes his head, “I do not.”

“It’s just too much to ask anyone to take on- the grief, the STEM nightmares-”

“And I don’t hear you asking anyone to take it on,” Stefano counters. “I am volunteering. And you’d be taking on my past and my nightmares as well.”

“But I’m a complete fucking mess,” Sebastian suggests, lowering his voice so that Lily doesn’t hear him swear.

“Again, we all are. That doesn’t make you special.” Stefano smiles.

“I have a child,” Sebastian tries.

“That’s one of the first things I ever knew about you,” Stefano replies, raising an eyebrow at Sebastian like Sebastian’s being sort of dense.

“Is it worth reminding you that I killed you before?” Sebastian asks, because he’s running out of ideas.

“No,” Stefano answers. “We covered that already. I had it coming.” Sebastian holds Stefano’s gaze for a second before they both laugh. It’s more of a release of tension than actual humor, but it still feels pretty nice. Sebastian pulls Stefano into another hug.

“Go and wash your face,” Stefano says, holding Sebastian tightly. “I’ll start dinner. We can talk more later.”

Sebastian nods, even though his head is next to Stefano’s and presumably out of his line of sight. He gives Stefano one final squeeze, then lets go and retreats into the downstairs bathroom.

Sebastian splashes some water on his face, dries off with a towel, and looks at himself in the mirror. He doesn’t care what Stefano says, he looks like a complete fucking mess, and the most frustrating thing is that he doesn’t even know why.

Sometimes, he can talk about Myra, can remember Myra, and it’s just a nice memory of a happy time in his life, and other times it’s like being sucker-punched, and he doesn’t fucking understand it. He needs to get his shit together, in the short term, so that when Lily comes down for dinner, he doesn’t look like he’s been crying, but also in the long term, because even if he can scrape by, can put on the face he needs to get through the day, this is no way to live.

He splashes more water on his face, but he can’t rinse his mind clean of his jumbled thoughts. He does love Myra in a way, but not the same way he did when she was alive, when they were together. Their relationship went through so many stages that he’s not sure where he stands on that anymore, except that she was an important person in his life, and she, or rather, her memory, still affects him.

But clearly that didn’t keep him from doing things with Stefano and from feeling things for Stefano that were not unlike his feelings for Myra. And Sebastian doesn’t know how to feel about that. It’s not the sex that’s the problem; that was fantastic. It’s the feelings, which were very pleasant earlier, but now looking at the totality of the circumstances, seem wrong or false somehow. Not to mention all of the complications that Sebastian is now forced to acknowledge.

Lily knowing about Stefano introduces the possibility that this could actually become something significant, and that brings a whole new series of questions and problems and fears. It’s real now. All of the hypothetical questions that have been bouncing around in Sebastian’s mind for the last few weeks now actually have to be dealt with, and he’s not sure he’s ready.

Sebastian hears Lily’s footsteps on the stairs, and rinses his face one final time, drying off and taking a last look in the mirror. He looks a little unkempt, but not obviously distressed. It will have to do.

When Sebastian emerges from the bathroom and makes his way back to the kitchen, Stefano has rolled up his sleeves and already has food going on the stovetop. Lily is seated at the kitchen table, telling him about something that happened at school. Sebastian pauses in the doorway, because the scene is both comfortingly domestic and unexpectedly gut-wrenching, because he’s seen it before, years ago, in another house, with a different person.

He helps Stefano finish up the cooking, and then they have a pleasant dinner at the kitchen table. Sebastian doesn’t really see the point in a formal dining room and has turned that space into his office. Stefano is a decent cook, though Sebastian suspects that he might produce something even better if he had access to fancier ingredients.

Lily and Stefano seem to have a lot to talk about, which works out well for Sebastian, because he’s so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he contributes very little to the conversation. To Stefano’s credit, he does not complain about Sebastian’s house or his food or his hospitality, which Sebastian is fairly sure leaves something to be desired.

After dinner, Sebastian does the dishes, still lost in thought, while Lily and Stefano take up opposite ends of the couch to watch Lily’s favorite detective show. Lily will watch any crime show for hours, which sometimes makes Sebastian cringe if it’s one of those shows where the writers clearly know nothing about how law enforcement actually works.

When the kitchen is clean, Sebastian tries to take a seat in the recliner, but Lily and Stefano both loudly object to that idea, so he ends up sitting on the couch between them, with Lily’s head in his lap and, after much inching closer interspersed with _Is this okay?_ looks, Stefano’s head on his shoulder. The show is not terribly engaging, which is fine, because Sebastian’s mind is already running around in circles, and when it ends, he’s no closer to understanding anything than he was before.

Lily sits up and stretches, then announces that she’s going to get ready for bed, flashing a knowing smile at Sebastian and Stefano, because, even though Stefano’s not actually leaning on Sebastian anymore, they are sitting really close together.

Sebastian then spends a pleasantly distracting few minutes with his arm around Stefano and his face resting against the top of Stefano’s head, before he goes upstairs to kiss Lily goodnight.

When Sebastian comes back downstairs, he turns off the TV and sits down on the couch, still close to Stefano but far enough away that he thinks they’ll be able to have a conversation that doesn’t turn into them just touching each other. Before he can begin, Stefano speaks.

“You asked me earlier to give you a chance, which I did, and I am.” Sebastian nods, and Stefano continues, “What is stopping you from giving me one?”

Sebastian’s first reaction is to protest, to say that he is giving Stefano a chance, but he quickly realizes that’s not exactly true. He’s giving Stefano a chance with his body certainly, but he’s still so locked up on the inside that he’s not even sure where to start, how to go about letting someone in, even if he wanted to. And he’s pretty sure he wants to.

“So many things,” Sebastian sighs. “I told you a bunch of them before in the kitchen.”

“And I believe I refuted all of them.” Stefano smiles, his self-confidence showing through even in this situation.

“And it doesn’t bother you that, in some way, I still love Myra?” Sebastian asks, the familiar tightness tugging at his throat. He pushes it down, because he needs to have this discussion.

“No,” Stefano answers. “I think you’ll find that you can feel many things for many people, often all at the same time.”

“It’s like I don’t even know myself anymore. I’m not the same person that I was before STEM,” Sebastian says.

“Neither of us is,” Stefano replies easily. “But that is an experience that we share.”

Sebastian nods. “I don’t want to promise something I can’t actually give.”

“I’m not asking for a promise,” Stefano says. “I’m merely asking you to try this.”

Sebastian closes his eyes for a moment, bringing a hand up to his face. He’s feeling a lot of the same, tangled emotions from earlier, but he’s also feeling exhausted, not just from the day but from years of mourning Lily and searching for Myra and searching for Lily and mourning Myra and just fucking trying to keep his shit together because this is more than one person should have to endure. And he doesn’t want to endure it by himself, and there is someone just a few feet away from him who is willing to share that burden, to whatever degree, and it’s someone whose company he already enjoys and who he has some kind of feelings for. He lowers his hand, opens his eyes, and sighs deeply.

“Okay, let’s try,” Sebastian says. Stefano breaks into a smile and leans across the couch to embrace Sebastian.

“Yes!” Lily shouts triumphantly from the top of the stairs. Stefano freezes.

“Go to bed young lady!” Sebastian calls back to her, but there’s no anger in his voice. Lily retreats, laughing, and Sebastian waits until he hears the door to her room close.

“You see what I mean about having kids, right?” Sebastian asks.

Stefano nods. “I suspect she’ll keep us on our toes.”

“Very much so,” Sebastian answers.

Sebastian waits and listens for a few moments, then, deciding that Lily is actually in bed this time, scoots over next to Stefano and wraps his arms around him. Stefano hugs back, head resting on Sebastian’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Stefano murmurs.

“Thank _you_ ,” answers Sebastian.

They hold each other like that for several minutes, Sebastian enjoying the steady rise and fall of Stefano’s chest, the warmth of his body, the scent of him, which brings back some more… interesting memories from earlier that day.

“I have to go,” Stefano says quietly, sitting back from Sebastian and looking into his face.

“Are you sure?” Sebastian asks, because even with Lily in the house, he’s imaging how perfect it would be to sleep with Stefano pressed up against him.

“Yes,” Stefano replies. “Unfortunately, I have an early meeting tomorrow.”

Sebastian nods, then leans in to kiss Stefano on the mouth. It lacks the bruising intensity of some of their earlier kisses, but Sebastian feels every detail of it, feels like he’s memorizing every inch of Stefano’s lips, even though he hopes he’ll be kissing them again very soon.

Stefano collects his outerwear and bundles up again, and after a few more goodnight kisses and a promise to return for dinner the next evening, he’s gone.

When Sebastian climbs into bed later that night, he tries to tell himself that nothing’s actually changed, that he’s the same person he was yesterday, but he’s not even fooling himself. It’s the same bed in the same house, but tonight he can actually feel the empty space that Stefano should be occupying.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Epilogue- Five months after moving in with Sebastian, Stefano has something to show him.]

Sebastian is getting the sinking feeling that he’s about to acquire a cat. It’s probably his own fault, as he certainly made at least one critical error in judgment to arrive here. No one goes to the animal shelter “just to look”; he knows that now. He wishes that he knew it half an hour ago.

To make matters worse, Lily’s birthday is a week away, and she’s been begging him for a cat ever since Krimson City. He had been holding his own for a while, but now he’s outnumbered, because Lily and Stefano are both going enthusiastically from cage to cage, and when the two of them get really into something like this, it’s very hard to talk them out of it.

Stefano moved in with them about five months ago, after two very awkward months of trying to coordinate schedules, impromptu sleepovers, and coming and going at all hours. To his credit, Stefano does not spend all of his time joining forces with Lily to antagonize Sebastian, but it is almost scary how well they get along.

They are definitely united on the cat idea, and Sebastian has moved on from his top tier suggestions, like maybe they should look at some dogs, to reminding Lily and Stefano that it’s not necessary to talk to the cats like they are people and that putting their fingers into the cages is basically asking to get rabies.

It’s not that he doesn’t like cats; he just doesn’t really see the point in having one around the house. But Stefano and Lily are clearly really excited about this, which is why Sebastian doesn’t protest when they eventually settle on a small black cat. She was sort of standoffish at first, but warmed up to them when they took her into one of the visiting rooms. Sebastian swears that cats are drawn to him simply because he has so little interest in them, because this one immediately hopped up into his lap, arching up into his hand in a way that reminded him a little bit of Stefano when they were in bed that morning. So, all things considered, not a bad cat.

They fill out all of the required paperwork and pay the fee and arrange to pick up the cat in a few days after she’s spayed. As they get in the car, Stefano and Lily are already arguing about what to name her, until Lily makes the very compelling point that it’s her birthday and it’s supposed to be her cat. Stefano heaves a sigh and concedes that yes, Lily should probably get to name the cat, but he keeps making suggestions all the way home anyway. Sebastian just smiles and tries to concentrate on the road.

 

 

 

When they arrive home, Lily goes to her room to do some research and make a list of the supplies they’ll need before they bring the cat home, and Stefano heads down into the basement where he develops his photographs.

“Come down in ten minutes,” Stefano tells Sebastian. “I have something to show you.”

Sebastian can’t say that he’s developing a taste for art exactly, but since they now have a darkroom and sort of a mini-studio in their basement, he is learning some things. Even though he doesn’t often have strong opinions on the finished products, he’s getting good at predicting which shots from a given set Stefano will prefer and which ones he’ll disregard and when he’ll grumble about how one of them could have been really good if he just changed the composition or lighting a little bit.

After spending the requested ten minutes tidying up the kitchen, Sebastian walks carefully down the narrow wooden stairs and opens the door at the bottom. The basement has undergone a complete transformation from the dark, creepy place Sebastian would only enter if he needed to check on the furnace or water heater. It’s still dark, but that’s intentional. The walls and floor are now finished, and thick red velvet curtains separate off various parts of the room.

Sebastian pushes one of the curtains aside to reveal Stefano’s darkroom, which is lined with various tables and sinks and tubs of chemicals. Stefano is silhouetted in red light, holding a photograph. He glances up at Sebastian.

“Here, take a look at this,” Stefano says, turning to hold the photograph under the light so that Sebastian can see it. Sebastian comes to stand next to Stefano, their arms almost touching.

What Sebastian notices immediately about the photograph is that it’s full of light, unlike most of Stefano’s compositions, which feature figures or objects in darkness. It takes him a moment to realize that the figure in this photograph, which appears almost in silhouette, is him. It’s hard to tell when it was taken, because everything else in the photograph is so overexposed- blown out, he thinks he’s heard Stefano call it- that it’s almost white.

“Wow,” Sebastian says, “This isn’t like your usual work.”

“No,” Stefano replies, “I decided to try something different.”

The other thing that Sebastian finds interesting is how much of the background there is compared to him. Since it’s so bright and out of focus, there isn’t really a lot of subject matter there. The more Sebastian looks at the image the more he begins to feel… not sad exactly, but he’s feeling something. Nostalgic, maybe?

“What’s all this?” Sebastian asks, gesturing to the background area of the photograph.

“That’s negative space,” Stefano sighs. “Don’t you ever listen when I’m explaining my work.”

“I do actually,” Sebastian says, a little offended. “But wasn’t Negative Space the name of your exhibit? You know, when I met you at the museum last fall?”

“Yes,” Stefano answers, “but it’s also a general concept in photography. It’s the space in an image that surrounds the subject.”

“The background?” Sebastian suggests.

“Yes, in a way,” Stefano replies, “but it’s also very important to the composition of the image. The gaps between figures can sometimes be as meaningful as the figures themselves.”

Sebastian nods, trying to figure out what it is exactly that he’s feeling when he looks at the photograph. “When did you take this?”

“Last week, at Lily’s soccer game,” Stefano says.

“Oh, right,” Sebastian says, nodding again even though he wasn’t aware that he was being photographed at the time. Stefano has taken some truly excellent photos of Lily that Sebastian treasures, so he can’t be too upset with Stefano for occasionally sneaking a picture of him. “It’s… it’s really good. Makes me feel almost sad though.”

He looks at it for a few more seconds, considering. “Lonely, I think.”

Stefano slides an arm around his waist. “I can understand that reaction. But you’re not actually lonely, are you?”

Sebastian is many things, but lonely is not one of them. Lily and now Stefano have brought so much to his life. He still has his dark moments, all three of them do actually, but things are getting better, and what’s more important, he can actually imagine that they might get even better in the future, or that he has some kind of future.

“No,” Sebastian says, turning to kiss Stefano’s cheek.

“Good,” Stefano smiles and pulls away, grabbing Sebastian’s hand. “Because I have something else to show you.” Stefano leads him out of the darkroom and through another curtain to a black leather couch in the studio part of the basement.

“Sit down,” he purrs and then disappears behind the curtain and out of sight. Sebastian sits down on the couch as he hears the click of the basement door locking and within seconds, Stefano is back, straddling Sebastian’s lap and crushing his mouth to Sebastian’s.

Sebastian’s noise of surprise is quickly swallowed up by Stefano’s tongue in his mouth and Stefano’s hands squeezing his shoulders and Stefano’s ass grinding against his lap. Sebastian’s hands are on Stefano’s hips, holding him as he rocks against Sebastian, and the feeling of rubbing up against Stefano is always just as amazing as it was the first time, although Sebastian usually manages not to come in his pants now.

Stefano’s hands drift from Sebastian’s shoulders down the front of his T-shirt to the waistband of his jeans, and Stefano sits back a little so that he can undo the button and zipper and slide Sebastian’s jeans and boxers down a few inches. This gives Stefano enough room to pull out Sebastian’s half-hard cock, and Sebastian sighs and shifts forward into Stefano’s warm hand. Even though Stefano lives with him now and they have lots of opportunities to do this, it still feels pretty fucking great every time Stefano touches him.

Sebastian can’t suppress a moan as Stefano’s light, teasing caresses become firmer and Stefano leans in to kiss him again. Sebastian slides his hands back to Stefano’s ass and squeezes, relishing the way Stefano groans into his mouth and tries to press forward into him. Stefano’s hand encircles Sebastian’s cock fully now, squeezing him gently before he begins to pump his hand up and down. Sebastian pulls back from the kiss so that he can let his head fall back onto the couch and push his hips up into Stefano’s hand. He’s fully hard now, and he’s not sure what Stefano has in mind, but what he’s doing at the moment is just perfect.

Apparently Stefano does have something else in mind, because just when Sebastian feels like he’s getting somewhere, Stefano releases his cock and climbs off of him. Sebastian’s own hand moves to his cock, stroking lazily as he watches Stefano remove his shoes, socks, pants, and briefs in the dim red light. Stefano is already hard as well, and when he turns back to Sebastian, the lust burning in his eye is apparent, even in the relative darkness of the room.

Then he’s straddling Sebastian again, urging Sebastian’s hips forward to give him more room to work, so that Sebastian is sitting almost at the edge of the couch and leaning back against the cushions. Sebastian’s hand is still on his own cock, and Stefano guides his hand until he’s holding his cock upright, then tells him, “Just like that.”

Stefano is raising himself up and shifting forward, and Sebastian’s cock is pressing at his entrance, and Sebastian is dizzy with excitement, and bracing himself to feel Stefano all around him, but also feeling a surge of panic, because there’s been no preparation and no lube and what the hell does Stefano think he’s doing?

“Wait,” Sebastian chokes out through gritted teeth. “Don’t we need to…” He waves his free hand in the air, trying to communicate through the thick haze of arousal, but Stefano catches his hand, bringing it to rest on Stefano’s hip.

“I know what I’m doing,” he says, voice steady and confident.

“Are you sure?” Sebastian asks, because he never skips the preparation, not just for Stefano’s comfort, but because he truly enjoys those moments where Stefano is coming apart under his hands.

“Just sit back and enjoy,” Stefano purrs. “I’ve taken care of everything.” And with that, Stefano begins to sink down onto his cock and everything feels so warm and slick and tight that Sebastian has to close his eyes and squeeze Stefano’s hip and concentrate on his breathing just to keep still, to keep from thrusting recklessly up into Stefano.

Stefano has clearly prepared himself for this before Sebastian came downstairs, because he’s well-lubricated and taking Sebastian smoothly into his body, and the image of Stefano fingering himself in preparation for this encounter is now burned into Sebastian’s brain and his arousal spikes even higher.

“Fuck,” Sebastian groans as Stefano continues to press down onto him.

Sebastian moves his hand so that Stefano can slide all the way down onto his cock and rests both of his hands on Stefano’s hips. When Stefano is fully seated in his lap, Sebastian waits patiently, letting his thumbs make little circles on Stefano’s skin, because even when Stefano is fully stretched and ready to take Sebastian, Stefano sometimes gets a little overzealous and takes him in way too fast and needs some time to adjust. Sebastian struggles to think of something to distract him from the tight, slick heat of Stefano’s body and the intriguing little gasps Stefano is making as he clutches at Sebastian’s shoulders.

After several seconds of trying not to think about how Stefano’s body is squeezing his cock and how Stefano must have looked earlier as he spread himself open with his own fingers, Sebastian opens his eyes. Stefano is practically shaking from exertion. Sebastian shifts one of his hands to rub Stefano’s back.

“You okay? We don’t have to-” Sebastian begins, but Stefano cuts him off by rising up a few inches and then dropping back down again, which thwarts all of Sebastian’s efforts to calm down, because now they’re both moaning in unison, and Stefano is lifting himself up again, almost all the way to the tip of Sebastian’s cock and this time when he slides back down it’s fast and hard and the rush of pleasure basically knocks the wind out of Sebastian.

He’s gasping, holding Stefano’s hips for support, and he wants to ask him to slow down, to give him a minute, because the pressure and the heat and the sight of Stefano on top of him, riding his cock, is almost too much. Stefano is still holding Sebastian’s shoulders, head thrown back and eye closed. He’s clearly enjoying himself, but his legs are already beginning to tremble from the effort, so Sebastian decides to help him out a little.

Sebastian takes a firmer grip on Stefano’s hips, and the next time Stefano sinks down onto his cock, Sebastian helps him lift himself up, supporting some of his weight until just the tip of Sebastian’s cock is inside him. Sebastian gives him a moment to anticipate before he pulls Stefano’s hips down hard and thrusts up into him at the same time, angling in just the right way. And he must be doing it right, because Stefano is actually shaking in his arms and rocking his hips and practically shouting his name so that Sebastian claps a hand over his mouth.

He removes it immediately of course, and they both freeze and look up at the ceiling as though they might somehow be able to tell if Lily has heard them. Everything is quiet on the floor above, as far as Sebastian can tell, so he takes Stefano’s hips again and starts up a steady rhythm, pulling Stefano down onto his cock as he thrusts up to meet him. Sebastian is so caught up in Stefano’s responses, his moans and gasps and the way his body jerks under Sebastian’s hands each time Sebastian slams their bodies together, that he’s almost surprised to realize how close he is to coming himself. He’s going to make damn sure that Stefano comes first though.

Sebastian needs both his hands to slide Stefano up and down his cock, so he pauses in his movements, sits up a little, leans forward, and whispers in Stefano’s ear, “Touch yourself.”

Stefano shivers and gasps out, “Fuck, Sebastian,” as his hands tighten on Sebastian’s shoulders. Then he’s moving one of his hands under his dress shirt. Sebastian can’t see exactly what he’s doing, but he closes his eye and moans, rocking against Sebastian, and Sebastian lifts Stefano’s hips to thrust into him again.

“That’s right,” Sebastian grunts as he plunges into Stefano again, punctuating each word with a rough thrust. “Let me. See you. Come.” And after just a few more thrusts, Stefano is using his free hand to cover his own mouth to muffle his cry of pleasure and clenching down on Sebastian so hard that Sebastian only has time for one more harsh thrust into Stefano before he is moaning Stefano’s name and squeezing Stefano’s hips and releasing into Stefano’s body as he holds them tightly together

For a few seconds, they’re frozen in place, chests heaving as they try to catch their breath. Then Sebastian leans back against the cushions, taking Stefano with him. One of Sebastian’s hands comes up to rest on Stefano’s upper back as he turns his head to bring his mouth right next to Stefano’s ear.

“Love you,” he whispers, and it’s the truth. It was disturbing at first to have those feelings for someone who wasn’t Myra, and it took some time for him to admit them, but Stefano deserves to know how to Sebastian feels about him.

“Love you too,” Stefano murmurs into his shoulder, and it feels nice to hear those words and speak those words while Stefano’s body is warm against his and Stefano is breathing gently onto his neck.

After a few more breaths, Stefano sits up and allows Sebastian’s softening cock to slip from his body. Sebastian turns to life full length on the sofa, maneuvering Stefano along with him, so that they’re pressed up against each other from head to toe.

It’s perfect, just being so close to Stefano, feeling Stefano’s body against his. He knows that in a few minutes, they’ll have to get cleaned up, rearrange their clothes, and go upstairs to check on Lily, but for the moment, he’s blissfully happy to lie here with Stefano with no space between them at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to VulpesKorsak for fact-checking and encouragement.


End file.
